Expat Community > Philippines

jfmancuso
Joined 2005
Posts: 17

Bought a house!

19 years ago

Whew! We finally settled on our house. 10 yrs old 3BR, 2BA, cable, phones, elect, etc.. 3 Mil pesos (~55K USD). Subic Bay area in a quiet neighborhood 15 mins walk to the beach. Wife had to look at about 100 houses to find this one. 3 mangoe trees, avacode trees, swings, shade, etc.. Haven't seen it yet, will fly out Easter Sunday. She said there were many bribes to make it appear that it sold for 1.5 mil to lower the taxes.

The seller also did not want to pay the realitor thier fee or the fee to get the deed transferred. We ended up splitting it. Those fees added up to ~ 105K pesos.

Then you have to pay to travel to the correct offices and feed whoever is with you and pay gas (you know the drill).

A 3 mil peso house will cost you about 3.2 when you finish. We're happy about it. The realitor said we could put it up for sale for 4 M tommorrow. Location, location, location. Same there as it is here.

I'll tell you about it and try to post pics when I get back. The seller cried when she signed the papers. She has to sell to get enough money to go back to the US with her husband and settle down.

Life is good. We will have an address in the PI next week at the Post Office. Of course we will get electric bills, etc too. Her sister (who owns a store at the market) will take care of it until we move there permanently next year.

We shipped a bunch of stuff door-to-door before the wife left. 27" TV, stereo, microwave, etc.. Cheaper than buying it there even with the shipping costs. Of course I sent step-down transformers to make it 110volts. I used UMAC to send my stuff, but I'm sure there are plenty others.

Talk much about it after we get back.

-Jim-

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SJB Global is a top-rated financial advisory firm specializing in expat financial advice worldwide, offering retirement planning & tax-efficient solutions with a regressive fee model.
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SJB Global

SJB Global is a top-rated financial advisory firm specializing in expat financial advice worldwide, offering retirement planning & tax-efficient solutions with a regressive fee model.
Learn More

SJB Global

SJB Global is a top-rated financial advisory firm specializing in expat financial advice worldwide, offering retirement planning & tax-efficient solutions with a regressive fee model.
Learn More

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Expat Community > Philippines

Bought a house!

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