Ideal place where to buy lot in the Philippines?

[Old55]

Crispy, I know you want to buy but have you considered renting?

[Crispy]

21 hours ago, Freebie said:

Ive looked extensively around Bantayan ( 4 trips now ) and Siquijor ( 3 trips ) and Valencia ( 2 trips) Hard to find that right place.

I lacerated a finger badly in Bantyan one trip that required stitches and had to vist the local rural hospital . Not somewhere youd rely on if you suddenly got very sick. Good for delivering babies due to lots experience but not much else. Ferry for me is fine, but in event of typhoons it can shot for days.

Siquijor, better hospitals ( 3 ) ,easy to get to Dumaguete which has an airport and hospitals in Dumaguete. But land slightly up in the hills which I wanted, then you need to ensure power and water supply 24/7. Valencia prices have increased a lot but the micro climate is tough.. always sky is black then blue might rain does rian stops raining, because of the nearby mountains.

Had a couple runs through Romblon looking also but it doesnt have much that appeals. Sadly as others have said , might just have to compromise.

Me , Ive basically given up. Ive looked and looked.

I've travelled the entire east coast of Negros, from Dumaguete City to Zamboanguita. The beaches just outside of Duma at Bacong and Dauin have dark brown dirty looking sand. There's quite a few Expats living in the area, but the sand really puts me off. The further south you get to Siaton and Zamboanguita the better the sand gets and the beaches are more appealing. There's a couple of spots where you can build overlooking houses with sweeping ocean views. There's quite a few Expats living around or on boats at Tambobo Bay. It's a bit far from decent medical facilities for my liking. 

Then there's Bais about one hour north of Duma, which is home to the Manjoyod Sand Bar. My wife's family is from there, I've seen a few Expats around town and nearby in Tanjay. The sand bar is hugely popular, but you either need to have your own boat or rent a bangka every time you want to go swimming.

They say Sugar Beach on the west coast and Langkawi Island in the north are pretty good, but i have been to neither. I can however recommend Sipalay on the west coast, having been there and witnessed the numerous small conical shaped islands (like chocolate hills plunked in the sea). This could potentially be nice place to live, but is quite a way to the nearest city and to Dumaguete or Bacolod City.

I had been looking at Valencia for quite a number of years, but I hesitated committing and as a result, probably missed the boat. I either had bad agents, who let me down, or there were issues with titles. Plus, Covid-19 prevented me from travelling there to finalise sale and title arrangements. By procrastinating, I missed out on some big lots in good locations.  I then switched my focus to the hilly area to the west and south overlooking Valencia. I haven't had much luck with agents in this area, so my search like you has come to a standstill for now. 

My mate however has been living in Valencia for 1.5 years and seems to like it there. We both lived in Mactan previosly. He's busy building a high powered 3 wheel motorbike, so that keeps him busy. When I lived in Mactan, there was a guy who lived in Siquijor, he used to visit Mactan occasionally to go shopping in Cebu and hang out with the Expats. That was quite a number of years ago now, I imagine there's a lot more Expats there nowdays and as you say, three hospitals, I'm surprised to learn that.

Like you, I want hilly land, but overlooking the sea and less than 1klm from the sea shore.  Not too far inland to be cut off from everything though. I advertise online, "looking for", but I've yet to get anything close to what makes me go, yeah that's the one. Have you been to Medillin, or Daanbantayan in the north of Cebu? Apart from the new airport in Bantayan, they are supposedly going to build one in Medillin starting last year. I'm not sure of the progress so far?

[scott h]

25 minutes ago, Crispy said:

I want hilly land, but overlooking the sea and less than 1klm from the sea shore.

Sounds a lot like Batangas, south of Cavite 

[Crispy]

10 minutes ago, scott h said:

Sounds a lot like Batangas, south of Cavite 

I like Batangas a lot. I have been to Batangas City many times on my way over to Puerto Gallera, where I used to stay in my wild younger days.

I used to live in Manila, but too much nighlife and chasing women took it's toll on me. I used to escape to San Isidro/White Beach for R&R.

To tell you the truth, I haven't looked at land prices near Batangas, but a lot of reitirement blogs mention Lipa City, which  is closer to Lake Taal

than Batangas, which is near to the sea. From my recollection, after visiting the Batangas Market, they have some of the best bulalo soup in the

entire Philippines?

 

[Crispy]

56 minutes ago, Old55 said:

Crispy, I know you want to buy but have you considered renting?

I would consider renting, at least until building my own place was finished.

I have rented twice previously short term in Manila many years ago.

I've also rented short term twice previously in Mactan.

One was a kubo and the other was a two bedroom cottage type house.

Long term though, I want to build my own house as it's an asset not an expense.

I'm one of these "off-grid" people, who want to build and own a house built from

used shipping containers or from air crete with my own rain water capture and

loads of solar panels. I want to grow my own veggies, have chickens etc.

[Freebie]

2 hours ago, Crispy said:

They say Sugar Beach on the west coast and Langkawi Island in the north are pretty good, but i have been to neither. I can however recommend Sipalay on the west coast, having been there and witnessed the numerous small conical shaped island

Had a vacation in a very quirky hotel, whereby needed to take a boat to go from main road to the beach area. Its a decent enough beach but normal filipino beach... ie dogs running around, not entirely clear and clean of trash. Having said that I saw the best sunset Ive ever seen on that beach. But otherwise no particular reason to return there..and its exactly halfway between Bacolod and Dumaguete.

 

Daanbatayan, not much there of interest I found.  Dauin, very over rated for me.

Sadly the airport in Bantayan when it starts will kill the cool relaxed vibe of the place , just like it did in Koh Samui so many years ago. Having said that the airport in Siquijor will do the same thing.

[OnMyWay]

On 7/24/2022 at 2:34 PM, Crispy said:

I had my heart set on Mactan and bought there 20+ years ago, but have now seen it become over crowded, poorly developed, lack of

basic infrastructure i.e. decent roads, drainage, water and reliable electric supply. Not to mention traffic jams and the length of time it

We just spent a week in Mactan and agree.  Our third time there and it definitely has gotten worse.  Outside the resorts, it seems like you are in a very poor area.  Of course, Odette had a big impact, but the roads, drainage, etc., are crap.  The new bridge is nice.  My wife said no more Mactan, but if I found a good deal for the family at JPark, I would return there in a heartbeat.

[Crispy]

14 minutes ago, OnMyWay said:

We just spent a week in Mactan and agree.  Our third time there and it definitely has gotten worse.  Outside the resorts, it seems like you are in a very poor area.  Of course, Odette had a big impact, but the roads, drainage, etc., are crap.  The new bridge is nice.  My wife said no more Mactan, but if I found a good deal for the family at JPark, I would return there in a heartbeat.

I had to look it up when you mentioned JPark and saw that I used to live not very far from where it's located between Maribago and Hadsan beaches. It certainly looks good for big and little kids.

The road leading to my place is called Fuentes Road, it's in Pajac. Honestly, last time I went back there, I couldn't even recognise the place. The road was narrow to begin with but people have been allowed to build their houses right up until the edge of the road. People are parking there cars on the road, because there's nowhere else to park, so try navigating along that road overtaking a parked vehicle with non stop traffic coming at you from the other direction, it's impossible. I do drive in the Phil's BTW. That is a big negative number one. The second negative about the roads is, 20-25 years ago the roads were in a terrible state, well guess what? In that lengthy period, nothing has improved, there's huge pot holes everywhere. You have to navigate those carefully and slowly as well. When it rains, it becomes a nightmare to go anywhere, simply because there's no drainage at all and it floods with water spilling all over the roads until such time it dries up.

My other beef is, the huge traffic jams in the morning from 6am untill at least 10am with workers going too and from work at MEPZA. So, you only have a window of 3 to 4 hours between mid morning and mid afternoon to go accross the bridge to Mandaue, then fight your way into the city to SM or Ayala. That is, unless you want to stay in the city and return to Mactan after 9-10pm at night.

You mentioned it in your reply, the whole place looks like you're in a poor run down place. That's because there are squatters from MIndanao sctattered all over the place. One person from Mindanao get's a job in MEPZA, then the who family and other hanger on's trapse to Mactan to live off the one salary. I know a family of 16-17 who did exactly this, left Bukidnon to live off their daughter who hooked up with a foreigner. These squatters congregate around Kagadoy, between Basak and Pajac and have started surrounding my house building shanties out of plywood and spunging off my water and electricity. There's a lot of shabu addicts there and theft is rampant. I've had the electric cable from my house to the village stolen a dozen plus times just to sell the copper and buy more drugs. They are even adapt at cutting the wire whilst it's live. I have yet to figure out how they do that?

The commercial development that's taken place along the beach road through Maribago is ugly as can be. There's very little parking along the road, there's signs everywhere and spaghetti powerlines dangling all over the place. Sure, there's some nice developments taking place in Newtown and Punta Engamo, but everywhere else its development out of control. To me it seems, you can build anything you want, no matter how ugly it is or how much it encroaches onto the roadway. I'm fairly sure there's little to no town planning and grease money under the table rules.

I've been trying to sell my rather big property in Mactan for a number of years now, but it has no town water, no MECO electricity poles and no made roads. Typhoon Odette blew roof iron away and smashed windows, so the house is in a sorry state right now making it virtually unsaleable!

 

 

[Kingpin]

16 hours ago, Crispy said:

I keep getting asked by agents, how much are you willing to pay or what's your budget. My reply to that is, how long is a piece of string?

It's virtually like them asking you how much are you willing to overpay and throw their way in the form of a big fat commission.

Exactly, my response to that question is always "depends if I like it or not". 

Because of extremely low supply and high demand, renting will always be the best value in any developed Philippines city. There are so few developed cities, and everyone with money wants in, so land value is ridiculously high.

Own and you'll either pay far more than a comparable city house in the US or AU, or you'll have to make any number of sacrifices of compromises.

Example: I'm renting a nice house in a subdivision. There's a house for sale here, in a worse location, and is much smaller and basically inferior in every way. With the same amount of money, I could make all those sacrifices and buy the house, or I could stay renting in the house I enjoy...for over 40 more years. And that doesn't even include any investments made while renting.

If that number were half, say around 20 years, then it's buyers market.

 

[OnMyWay]

56 minutes ago, Crispy said:

I had to look it up when you mentioned JPark and saw that I used to live not very far from where it's located between Maribago and Hadsan beaches. It certainly looks good for big and little kids.

JPark used to be called Imperial Palace.  The owner, Justin Uy, is building an even bigger one in Bohol.  Top notch service, the best I have had in the Philippines, to go along with the top notch prices.  Gorgeous grounds and waterpark.  We had a great time.  I will post some pics one of these day.

We got a deal on a Mactan suite last year, on Lazada. About 15k for two nights.  Same is 25k now or even higher if you let one of the hotel websites scam you.

We also stayed at Maribago.  Disappointed in the beach.  Not like the pics at all.  Will post about that too.