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

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.

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

Many property owners confuse a Tax Declaration (Tax Dec) with an RPT bill or Official Receipt. They're completely different documents. A Tax Dec is an assessment record issued by the local Assessor's Office. It identifies the property for real property taxation and typically states its location, area, classification/actual use, market value, assessed value, and declared owner. Land and improvements may even have separate Tax Decs. So what is it used for? 1. REAL PROPERTY TAX

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

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

Once upon a time, a buyer decided to transfer his own condo title. No agent, no lawyer. He figured he'd save on professional fees. How hard could it be? Here's how the deal got there. The condo was P5 Mn. He wanted the unit, but his money was still tied up in the sale of another property. So he paid P2 Mn as a downpayment and had the seller sign a Contract to Sell. The balance was due within six months. Five months later, his other sale closed. He paid the remaining P3 Mn, th

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