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

Let's say you came up with a clever money-making idea. Find an old low-storey condo building sitting on a big lot. The building is tired. The units are relatively cheap. You figure that one day it gets condemned, the land gets sold, and the owners split the money. You have P50 Mn to spend. A studio costs P2.5 Mn. A 3-bedroom costs P10 Mn. So do you buy 20 studios or 5 three-bedrooms? You read that under RA 4726, the Condominium Act, owners get equal shares in the common areas

Buyer 1 bought a condo in 2020 for P10 Mn and sold it in 2025 for P20 Mn. He doubled his money in 5 years. Buyer 2 bought a condo in 2015 for P10 Mn and also sold it in 2025 for P20 Mn. Doubled his money too. Both are big wins. But was one better? And how do we measure it? This is where the Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) comes in. It coughs up one annual percentage you can use to compare any investment: condos, lots, stocks, bonds. First, a common mistake. You can't jus

Let's say you came up with a clever money-making idea. Find an old low-storey condo building sitting on a big lot. The building is tired. The units are relatively cheap. You figure that one day it gets condemned, the land gets sold, and the owners split the money. You have P50 Mn to spend. A studio costs P2.5 Mn. A 3-bedroom costs P10 Mn. So do you buy 20 studios or 5 three-bedrooms? You read that under RA 4726, the Condominium Act, owners get equal shares in the common areas

One detail on a land title that most property owners never think about: their address. Should it be the condo you're renting? Your parents' house? Your office? There isn't one magic answer. What matters is that it's accurate, reliable, and somewhere you can actually receive important notices for years to come. This became very real to me recently. A client requested a Certified True Copy of the title to an agricultural property she owned. That's when she discovered it had alr

There's one thing a lot of raw land buyers skip checking: how high or low the property sits compared to the road. You can find a lot with a great location, solid frontage, and a price per square meter that looks like a steal. But if it sits well below road level, that gap can quietly become part of your development cost. Here's a quick example. Say you're looking at a 1-hectare property, 10,000 sqm, sitting about 1 meter below the road. If you wanted to bring the whole thing

If you’re a foreigner buying property in the Philippines—or a Filipino property owner planning to migrate abroad—here’s something you should think about before you leave: your Philippine bank account. Buying the property is only half the story. Someday, you may need to sell it. And that’s where having a local bank account can save you a lot of headaches. Real estate transactions in the Philippines are still commonly settled through manager’s checks. This becomes especially im

If you're selling a property, should you rent it out while waiting for a buyer? My advice: if you're serious about selling, keep it vacant. Yes, leaving it empty means giving up rental income. But a tenant can make the property significantly harder to sell. The biggest problem is viewings. A serious buyer messages your broker: “Can I see the unit tomorrow at 2 PM?” Your broker now has to coordinate with the tenant. “I’m not available tomorrow.” “I work from home. After 5 PM o

In 1968, the country’s top companies and schools came together to establish a world-class business school: Asian Institute of Management (AIM). Ayala donated the Makati land that became AIM’s campus, in what is now Legazpi Village. Here’s a lesser-known part of the story. In the early 2000s, AIM was offered an exchange: its Makati property for a much larger land in Laguna. Back then, the Laguna property was practically in the middle of nowhere. Today, we know it as Nuvali. On

Lately, I've been seeing videos promoting pre-selling properties because of the attractive discounts and flexible payment terms. The usual pitch is simple: pay the down payment over several years, then just finance the balance through a bank. But here's the question nobody asks: can you actually qualify for the bank loan when turnover comes? As a general rule, banks prefer that your total monthly debt obligations—including your housing loan—do not exceed about 40% of your gro