Expat Community > Philippines

lblampman
Joined 2016
Posts: 266

Where to live -sort of (sorry for another one)

6 years ago

Okay, so we lived in Polangui, Albay for 1-1/2 years in the Bicol region of Luzon (far southeast tip). It was cheap, the people were great, but the weather was bad (typhoons land there first), and access to anything more than basic things poorer Filipinos need was at least a 1-1/2 hour trip to Legazpi or a 2 hour trip to Naga. And even then, I couldn't always find what I wanted.

Then we sold all our stuff, packed our suitcases, and headed to Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos. We ended up spending close to a year in Chiang Mai, Thailand with some side trips to Malaysia and Laos.

We arrived back in the Philippines on April 21st. I booked a month-to-month apartment rental in Imus, Cavite, which has been okay but not great and we don't want to stay here.

So...now we're on the hunt again for a place to live. My wife would prefer to live on Luzon (it's her home island) but is willing to move to other islands (mostly), so there are lots of choices.

We paid P5,000/mo for a 3 bedroom, 2 CR, house in Polangui (I really considered it 2 bedrooms and a nice pantry and it wasn't a large house) but that's a mostly rural area. We paid the equivalent of P10,000/mo in Chiang Mai, and now we're paying P10,000/mo for the 1-bedroom place we have in Imus. We could go higher but that would eat into money that I'd rather use for traveling around the Philippines or overseas. These prices are for rent only and don't include utilities.

We went and looked at new for rent condo in the middle of Manila the other day that was located on the 18th floor of a 30-story high-rise that overlooked the Pasig River, and most of the city. The trip there (from Imus) and the area around the condo just about did me in. I'm not a city guy at all and that trip proved it beyond any thoughts I had about "getting used to it". It was horrible! It was also P15,000/mo which I didn't like but thought might be worth it to not have to travel from Imus (or elsewhere) into the city. I was wrong!!!

So, where to go? I'd love to find something that's not in the boondocks but also isn't in a sea of humanity, at least not a sea the size of the Manila area but still has reasonable access to goods and services. In Polangui it took me ages to find an extension cord )only the LCC store had one); I never did find any wire nuts, and I never found a place to buy a ladder (so I could change the lightbulbs in the house). That's sort of my threshold. If I can also find something other than Eden cheese on the shelf that would be nice too. I like to eat at a restaurant on occasion and since Polangui had one restaurant it got old pretty quickly. I don't crave western things in general although I'd love to find someplace that had decent vegetables (finding good lettuce here in Imus is even a challenge).

My wife has complete ruled out Mindanao, so it's off limits regardless of how I feel about it. Sometimes I'm smart enough not to push!

I really want to find a furnished, or mostly-furnished, place. I still want to be able to move around or travel and I don't want to go through the process of buying appliances, beds, etc, and then have to sell them off again.

If anyone is living someplace they particularly like and especially if you know of a furnished place for rent in a relatively decent place, I'd love to know about it. I do have a Yamaha Mio 125 scooter for transportation. So far, I've left it in Polangui, I'm a bit reluctant to ride in our area as the traffic is not only crazy (6 lanes across) but sometimes pretty fast (for the Philippines).

I know this is very open-ended but aside from budget and my wife's off-limit areas, we really don't have any specifics things in mind.

A studio apartment would work just fine and a 1-bedroom would be okay. We would consider a house if it was furnished.

Thanks for reading another "where to live" thread, I do appreciate it!

All the best,

Les

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