Someone explain this to me

Dumaguete beach front property : ₱ 3,100 /sqmtr
Bacong beach front property : ₱ 3,500/sqmtr
Hawaii Big Island beach front property : ₱ 700/sqmtr
Bahamas beach front property : ₱ 1,900/sqmtr

I can go on with many more tropical locations with nicer beaches, cleaner water and better amenities. I recently took and interest in buying land here in the Dumaguete area but after about 10 minutes of searching I quickly lost that interest. These are just a few examples of locations that I found, I'm sure there are some far cheaper and some far more expensive, but to find any location in the Philippines, aside from a few extreme locations I can't see ANY reason for property value to be higher than even a manure pile in Hawaii or the Bahamas. I understand the cost of building a house is much cheaper here and the cost of living is cheaper but really, what is justifying these prices?

 

And yes, I was surprised at the low prices in Hawaii and the Bahamas, I was expecting them to be only slightly higher than this area,as my home state of Texas you can buy property at around ₱100/sqmtr. I can provide links for those non-believers, although I quick Google search will find you cheap properties.

The major problem for me here isn't the price, although a turn off, it's the fact that the land cannot be solely and undisputably mine.

 

Yes but building materials on these islands would be priced higher than the US as well since EVERYTHING must be imported. I would guess that labor in the Bahamas and other Caribbean islands is going to be much cheaper than the US though.

 

Lol I do like my cheap beer, cheap cigarettes and.....cheap women. Something not so cheap in the Bahamas.

 

And honestly the only reason I can think of any more to be here......but 3 d*mn good reasons if you ask me.

 

I looked into renting in Hawaii but changed my mind quickly as the salaries paid there just couldn't compensate for the cost of living a decent life. This post is more on why Dumaguete property prices are so much higher than much MUCH nicer islands. There are some places in the Philippines that land is still cheap, but what are the chances I have running water, electricity or even a road at, say, ₱15/sqmtr? The standard of living here is world's behind (let's say 2 world's behind) these other islands throughout the world, the prices should be as well.

And let's say that someone pays ₱3,000+/sqmtr for undeveloped land. They buy 3000 sqmtr. That's ₱9,000,000 ($219,000). Assume they build a nice house for ₱5,000,000 ($121,000). Total investment ₱14,000,000. This person decides to rent this out for something outrageous here, say ₱30,000. At that rate it would take the investor 40+ years to break even on the investment. So why is that rent only 500 USD a month on those properties selling for 3000 a square meter? Something doesn't add up. I smell heavily inflated property values.

I forsee a market crash in the Philippines. What goes up.......