"Should I sell?" Clients keep asking me this. My usual reply is a question of my own: "And then what?" The answer matters, because selling now comes at a cost. In today's soft market, some buyers are negotiating as much as 20% off asking prices. If you need the cash, that can be a fair trade. Liquidity is a valid reason to sell. But some owners tell me they'd park the money in a time deposit, earn interest, and buy back once prices drop. That's trying to time the market. It's

A leak in a kitchen cupboard. The engineer traced it… and went quiet. It was coming from somewhere no one expected...

Once upon a time, a seller was in the final stages of selling their house. Everything went smoothly until they requested a certified copy of the tax declaration. When agents of the seller tried to procure a certified tax declaration, the city assessor said they would send an appraiser to check on the improvements of the house. And so, the appraiser dropped by and started measuring. He discovered that the improvement stated in the original tax declaration was understated by ro

How did land prices in Ayala Alabang Village move as the village filled up? We mapped every lot using satellite images from 2010 to 2025. 🟢 Green = empty lot ⚪ Grey = house 2010: ~93% built · 324 empty lots · ₱37k/sqm 2015: ~95% built · 245 empty lots · ₱65k/sqm 2020: ~95% built · 224 empty lots · ₱120k/sqm 2025: ~95.5% built · 202 empty lots · ₱237k/sqm Along the way: the Skyway reached Alabang (2011), MCX opened (2015), the pandemic hit (2020), and the Skyway extension ope

Do stocks and real estate move together? 📈🏡 We plotted the PSEi against Forbes Park land prices (₱/sqm) from 1980 to today, with each president’s term shaded. What the data suggests: ✅ Over 5-year periods, the two moved in the same direction about 7 times out of 10. ✅ In the big confidence shocks (the 1984 debt crisis, the 1997 Asian crisis, 2008), both fell. ⚠️ Year to year, it’s close to a coin flip. Stock prices react daily, while land prices barely move in an ordinary b

When did Metro Manila land prices really start to soar? Not in the 70s. Not in the 90s either. To track this, we used two villages. Forbes Park is the benchmark for the most expensive land in Metro Manila. Ayala Alabang Village, developed by the same developer, is a good proxy for what happens when an "up and coming" area matures. In 1972, a square meter of lot in Forbes Park was worth around P200. By 2000 it had climbed to about P45,000. Big jump, sure. But then it barely mo

Your property has 3 different values. RPVARA wants to make it 1. 🏠 Here’s what the new law means for your amilyar/RPT, and why it’s now on pause. Swipe → Save this and share it with a fellow property owner.

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

How much does 1 square meter actually cost in a Metro Manila condo? Based on resale listings I gathered, the answer ranges from around ₱95,000/sqm to ₱664,000/sqm among the 83 buildings in this comparison. That means 1 sqm at Balmori Suites costs roughly the same as 7 sqm at Chateau Verde. Of course, price per sqm alone doesn’t tell you whether a condo is cheap or expensive for a reason. Location, age, developer, amenities, density, unit size, parking, and the quality of the