considering retirement in the philippines new home area?

[Snowy79]

16 hours ago, Jake said:

I am really happy for you Snowy.  You've come a long way and finally can walk peacefully without anymore stress like Sanbang, Puerto Galera.  Well done sir!

I don't know about the no more stress but I can look back on Sabang and laugh.  Everything I warned them about has come back and bitten them on the butt. Even seasoned guys with thirty years experience who used to rough it with the best of them have thrown their cards on the table and left. 

If I was starting again I'd be looking for an area that is future and disaster proof. This pandemic is hopefully a once in a lifetime event but I'm sure there are other things that a few years ago I wouldn't have worried about now would play a part in my location.

A major earthquake in Manila, another Volcano having a major erruption and last but not least if I married and built a home in a nice area what could go wrong if the relationship fails. Houses previously could take a long time to sell. I doubt many will be selling in this climate. Real Estate agents are being laid off in their thousands and that tells me something.

[Jollygoodfellow]

On 6/27/2020 at 1:11 PM, Snowy79 said:

I'm sure there are other things that a few years ago I wouldn't have worried about now would play a part in my location.

Might have been a different story if they closed Boracay to tourist for good. 

[Snowy79]

8 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

Might have been a different story if they closed Boracay to tourist for good. 

Fortunately many at the top end of the Government have serious financial interests on Boracay. The worst that will happen is things would be in stale mate until after Duterte's tenure and watch that casino getting built and prices going through the roof.  Especially after billions of public Pesos have been spent upgrading the island.

[Edrigo Salvadore]

On 6/26/2020 at 4:05 AM, Snowy79 said:

For myself personally I'm 100% happy that I bought a condo on Boracay and this quarantine has made it look an even better choice.  I have the benefits of Western facilities on hand, decent produce, stunning beaches and a clean title. 

What does a "clean title" mean? I read that I need it for my SRRV application.

[scott h]

18 minutes ago, Edrigo Salvadore said:

What does a "clean title" mean?

Welcome to the forum. 

In a nutshell it means that all taxes are paid up. There is no lean on the property due to debt owed creditors and ownership of the land is not being contested in court by family members. This last is quite common if the person selling the property inherited it from relatives.

 

[Heeb]

10 hours ago, Snowy79 said:

Fortunately many at the top end of the Government have serious financial interests on Boracay. The worst that will happen is things would be in stale mate until after Duterte's tenure and watch that casino getting built and prices going through the roof.  Especially after billions of public Pesos have been spent upgrading the island.

I would love to live on Boracay but the wife would never go for it, are you allowed to have a motorcycle there? Not really a motorcycle place though is it.

As I was typing this something occurred to me, I haven't seen a post from the "Arizona Kid" in a long time, did you guy's run him off, or did he go away pouting? I hope he's okay, does anyone know his status?

 

[Snowy79]

1 hour ago, Heeb said:

I would love to live on Boracay but the wife would never go for it, are you allowed to have a motorcycle there? Not really a motorcycle place though is it.

As I was typing this something occurred to me, I haven't seen a post from the "Arizona Kid" in a long time, did you guy's run him off, or did he go away pouting? I hope he's okay, does anyone know his status?

 

There are an alloted amount of motorcycles allowed on the island and I'm fortunate enough to have one.  Still plenty of tricycles about and I also have a mountain bike.  Personally I like to walk the beach to get to where I want.  4.5km of lovely white sand and aquamarine seas. The island is just over 7km long and 600m wide in places.  Probably 1km at it's widest.

[Heeb]

1 hour ago, Snowy79 said:

There are an alloted amount of motorcycles allowed on the island and I'm fortunate enough to have one.  Still plenty of tricycles about and I also have a mountain bike.  Personally I like to walk the beach to get to where I want.  4.5km of lovely white sand and aquamarine seas. The island is just over 7km long and 600m wide in places.  Probably 1km at it's widest.

Yes. we went there in February before the Coraziness started, loved it even despite the island hopping touts.

[DaveB]

Back Again...Here's a tale of the "new guy" on the forum.  I kept getting email notices about this conversation thread, and I kept following the link only to see the same thread I'd been reading for the last couple weeks.  Then yesterday I had an "ah ha" moment - I did not know this thread was up to 4 pages.  Never noticed the "page" indicator on the bottom.  So I kept looking at page 1, and y'all have moved along way past that.  Duh.

Anyway...to respond to a couple statements.  I was in Boracay the first week of March.  I thought that was Malay Province, and Aklan was actually south of there, so I may have mis-spoke about my exploration there.  My purpose was to cruise up and down between Caticlan and Kalibo and see  how it compared as a contender for moving to the Philippines.  I stayed in Boracay partly because that was where all the hotels and Air BnBs were, and partly because my brother was tagging along with some of his adult kids, so thought it would be a fun place for them.  Boracay tourism was really down at that point  - the South Korea version of COVID-19 was just hitting its stride.  My wife and I ate brunch one morning at one of the upscale resorts and the waiter told me out of 200 rooms, they only had 11 occupied..

The van company I used to get from Kalibo up to Boracay had a great guy who really knew his way around and we used him for a day with one of their drivers to repeat the trip between Kalibo and Boracay - but off the beaten path and all over the boonies for about 8 hours.  My mother in law is from a farm up in the hills above Kalibo and I had been there before.  Was kind of impressed with how clean and laid out the city is.  We were also looking at things around Nabas.   We were on some wide open beaches in between Kalibo and Nabas - nice area.  I had mentioned earlier that I have some specific criteria we're seeking.  That area meets some of it, but some of would be a bit bothersome to work out.  We've moved it to third on our "preference" list. 

(One thing I came away with was the surprise at the changes in Boracay.  I had first visited there about 20 some years ago.  At that time, there were no departure/docking terminals at either end of the boat trip.  You just went down to the dock, there was a guy there directing people to boats like they were taxis, you paid, you went.  When you got to the island, there was no jetty.  The boat stopped off shore and dropped a ramp, you went down into knee deep water, and you waded ashore.  Then when you got across the beach, there you were - in front of mult-bazillion dollar Hilton.  Typical Philippine schizophrenic experience.)

We left Caticlan after a couple days, and spent five days roaming around Dumaguete.  Liked it, though I liked the area around Dauin best.  Then flew up to Manila and got there 36 hours before the Manila airport quarantine kicked in that stopped all domestic flights from landing there.   Dodged that bullet.  We flew back to the US two days later.  Of course, haven't been able to go back since.   We had planned on going back in April to check out the greater Subic City/Olongapo/Freeport zone area.

Right now, the virus is causing us problems at both ends.  My wife retires next February, so we can't deal with a 14 day quarantine to spend a week looking at more potential places to live.  Meanwhile, my application for a 13A visa is on hold (my wife is a dual citizen) - the Pierce County Sheriff Dept that has police jurisdiction over where I've lived the last 22 years is not fielding any requests for things like Police Clearance until the County goes to "phase 3" of moving past the lock down policies.  At the rate the whole damn US is going, we may never get past where we are.  My Plan B is that we might just end up flying in March, get a Balikbayan visa at the airport, go into the 14 day quarantine (since we'll both be retired at the point, we won't care much), then go up to Subic for a while and finish the exploration we wanted to do this year.  We'll have our world packed into two suitcases and two balikbayan boxes. so we'll be mobile and fairly flexible to sort it out .  But still hoping we can get to a better place before the year is out and get the visa in place, at the least.

Another quirk to interject into the journey - dealing with the Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA).  As my wife was setting up things for her dual citizenship and new passport, the consulate wanted the new PSA birth certificate.  She has birth certificates  printed back in the 80s and 90s from the Mabalacat courthouse.  Since they were in a transition period, they took those.  But we ordered her new one form PSA.  It came back with a different birth year!  Only way to fix that is petition the court to correct the birth year.  So we had done that and had a court date (finally) of March 31 (which is why were going to do a Subic tour in April).  The virus blew that away, and that whole fiasco is also hanging - though we luckily got all her paperwork done using her old birth certificates.  Still - it's something we want to fix.  Feels like something that will just come back and be a hassle some day.  

Glad I started this whole immigration thing 2 years early.  

[RBM]

11 hours ago, Snowy79 said:

There are an alloted amount of motorcycles allowed on the island and I'm fortunate enough to have one.  Still plenty of tricycles about and I also have a mountain bike.  Personally I like to walk the beach to get to where I want.  4.5km of lovely white sand and aquamarine seas. The island is just over 7km long and 600m wide in places.  Probably 1km at it's widest.

Snowy little curious as to how your positive feelings are if and when tourism returns in force.

No shoe fits all, myself I am just not suited in areas that attract large amounts of tourists such as Chinese Korans and such. Experienced this in El Nedo   and other places, agree the foods and bars can be great but for myself short lived contentment. Much prefer off the beaten track.