How to read our price guides The secondary-market figures we've been posting are asking prices: what sellers are asking right now, not what properties actually sold for. Here's how to read them. 1.⁠ ⁠Upgrades don't pay back in full. As my dad used to tell me, a Honda Civic is still a Honda Civic, even if you upgrade every part. Volk mags, a B18C5 engine, a Focal sound system. There might be a buyer for a P1.5M Civic, likely an enthusiast, but that pool of buyers is very small

Most of the expensive real estate mistakes aren't about buying the wrong property. They're about owning it the wrong way. Here are 10 rules to follow before your next purchase. 1. Thou shall think twice before registering as engaged in the real estate business. ALL your properties (yes, including the personal ones) can then be treated as ordinary assets. Sell one and get hit with VAT and income tax of up to 35%. 2. Thou shall not casually put residential properties in a corpo

Want to feel poor? 🏡💸 ₱11.3 million to ₱1.5 billion. That’s the range of typical asking prices across 68 gated villages in Metro Manila and nearby areas. One typical Forbes Park house is listed for about the price of 133 in Eastland Heights. Swipe through the ranking, from cheapest to priciest. Which village surprised you most? 👇 Save this for your property search—and remember: these are asking prices, not sale prices. Lot sizes matter, too.

An open letter to banks: If you want to grow your loan book, I think there's a gap worth solving. In many resale transactions, buyers only start their loan application after finding a property. It can take weeks before they know how much the bank will lend them and before the deal reaches the Letter of Guarantee stage. That creates a problem. The seller wants earnest money to take the property off the market. But the buyer still doesn't know with enough certainty whether the

Oh no! The Manager’s Check for the capital gains tax/documentary stamp tax is short by P200. Do you return the MC to the buyer and ask him to have a new one issued? Nope. There’s a simpler fix. The original MC can still be paid, and the P200 deficiency can be paid separately, with both payments properly reflected and validated. P200 is just an example. Whether the shortfall is P200 or any other amount, the deficiency can be paid separately. So: one BIR form, two deposit slips

What happens if you typed the wrong Title Number in the Deed of Absolute Sale? The DOAS is already notarized. The BIR eCAR is already issued. Then the Registry of Deeds catches the typo. Don't panic. A wrong title number doesn't mean redoing the whole transaction. If the eCAR already has the correct title number and the DOAS is the only document with the error, the RD may let you correct it instead of starting over. Here's roughly how that goes: 1. The lawyer who notarized th

Good news! We finished the JPRE Zonal Value Finder for Cavite, Laguna, and Batangas over the weekend. The new finder includes zonal value records for many of the South’s well-known residential areas, including Punta Fuego, Kawayan Cove, Nuvali, and Ayala Westgrove Heights. A word of caution when searching large developments such as Nuvali: the estate spans several barangays and cities, so your search may return different zonal values depending on the property’s exact location

Finding BIR zonal values just got easier. I created a Zonal Value Finder on jpatag.com so you no longer have to open and search through different BIR Excel files one by one. Simply type a property, subdivision, street, or development name and the page will display all matching zonal value records. For example, search “Loyola Grand Villas” and you can immediately see matching entries across both Quezon City and Marikina, helping you spot records you might otherwise miss. One i

You've seen this in Manila: a traffic enforcer parked just past a no-left-turn intersection, waiting for someone to make the illegal turn so he can flag them down. I've never understood that. Why not stand before the intersection and stop the driver from turning left in the first place? Sure, the sign is right there. Drivers should know better. But if the point is to keep traffic moving and cut down on violations, catching the mistake before it happens beats catching it after

Learn why vacant condos can develop sewer odors from dry P-traps—and the simple water test that can help identify and fix the problem during a showing.