Land / house prices

From what I’ve heard while I was scouting for properties to buy last year, Ajong Sibulan is a real estate nightmare. The location is awesome if you are in the market for a fantastic view. The higher you get, the view of Cebu island gets even better. Now the problem. Ajong is a major quarry site and has been for years that landslides have become a major issue. A bit of rain, and you find yourself unable to pass the only access road you’ve got because of rockfalls etc. A fault line was also discovered in the Ajong river that put forth questions on the stability of the surrounding areas. Not a lot of people know this except for the Ajong locals, government officials and geologists who did the study, but all this impacted on the land value of Ajong. A major real estate developer paid a lot of money to purchase huge tracts of land in Upper Ajong (unreal, fantastic views!) with the idea to build a residential development that catered primarily to expats. Of course, the developer bought the land before the fault line was discovered. Now I heard, they’ve been having a hard time selling each parcel of land. Each parcel of land comes with a brand new house and is being sold for about Php 8 million each. They have lowered the price to 7.4m now. The ones who bought were the ones who clearly had zero idea what the value of Ajong costs these days. The land is dirt cheap especially in Upper Ajong. I know a lot of people who have been trying for years to sell their property there with no luck. Some have just kept it after trying for years, waiting it out and just hoping the land will go back up. The more ruthless realtors won’t tell you the truth about Ajong, it’s all about the commission after all. The more honest ones will tell you and give you other options than Ajong.

I am telling you this because I was one of those tempted. The views were just insanely gorgeous.

 

When I came here in 1981 beach property's in Mangnao and Calindagan were around 15 peso's square meter. Land between the beach and the hiway was around 5 peso's square meter. That plot of land where City Mall now is was for sale at 100,000 and I refused it because it was too expensive. I only wish I knew where it was all going to go 35 years ago..

 

So what was Dumaguete like at the time in size and development? Did it at that time resemble anywhere you know of today (e.g. Bayawan)? As we all know, you have to get in before the crowd does - but also take account of the impact of rising sea-levels over the long-term and so be careful in buying low-level land. Once again, Valencia has great prospects!

 

The male part of the 'Wilson's Shangri-La' partnership was touting land around that residency early 2017 and saying he had options on it.

 

Because he invests enough money and does it through a corporation.