If you are going to buy, what's the sweet spot?

Many house and lot prices are completely overrated. This counts especially for condos. Saw some used houses being sold for double the price of a new house of same style and size. Another joke is the house for assume. When calculating the cost for purchasing and the still left over downpayment, you will get to near the double amount what is the houses real value.

 

I can only suggest that you try to have a new house built for the same price as the used house is selling for. The reason I suggest it is because a "finished" new house in Philippines often costs the same again to make it livable. I am thinking of my own personal experience as well as the experience of a few close friends. What they originally thought their new house would cost turned out to be half the actual cost when you start adding things like a wall around the property or a car port or putting tiles on the floor etc.

Another thing to realize is that used houses are often "asking" double what they expect to put in their pockets once the house is sold. This is to give them room to negotiate or to find the "rich foreigner" who sometimes shows up. There are also taxes, legal fees, and commissions to be paid from the sale price so it comes down to: if they can't get a certain amount of money they cannot pay the fees and thus they cannot sell it.

 

It is very surprising how big bubbles can grow before they burst. The Philippines is in the position of growing their economy yearly and are presently about 34th in the table of GDP and are projected to be 20th in about 10 years. That economic growth and influx of foreigners fed up with how the Western world is disintegrating is a huge catalyst for even higher house prices. In the UK, house prices are astronomical (about 80,000 php or more per month rental for a 3 bed detached house outside a city with the house selling for about 20 million php) even though the economy is very weak. There is no longer any rational link between incomes/value/common sense/anything and house prices.

 

Proof of no common sense - land, yes land only, in Valencia common asking price is p1,500/sq meter. That is over $120,000/acre WTF!!!!!!!! The Hindenburg was a tiny bubble gum bubble compared to this one...

 

If anyone was going to buy an acre size lot here they would probably find property further up the mountain and only pay in the 80p-200p range depending. A typical size lot here to build on might be 600 smtr at 1500smtr so 900,000 (about US $18K+). If not beach property.
Quality builders are now charging 21,000p-25,000per square meter plus additional costs for landscape, block wall, fence, driveway, drainage, so you can do the math before you decide to go that direction (and put it in your partner's name).

 

You hit my point exactly, many places with better everything - except women - can be had at much lower prices. The only justification for current prices here is a mixture of greed and stupidity. So.... I will definitely wait a few years to buy until the prices implode to where they should be or a seller gets tired of waiting for a sucker. Which leeds me to... a new thread.

 

Another important thing, that not justify the crazy prices, is that in a "real" country ( like UK,US,EU... ) if you want to move on or need cash you can sell your house to a broker in few days for a minimum lost ( like 10-20% less than of market price ) but in "dreaming" area ( like dumaguete ) you can try to sale it for years without finding any buyer with the money even if you are ready to sell it at 1/10th of its "value"

 

May I ask how long you've been there and why did you sell your property?