Our experiences buying, and building a Vacation Home

[jlg]

I will start a new topic on our experiences about Buying Land, and Building a Vacation Home in the Philippines. My desire and Goal is to hopefully help others from my experiences, mistakes, lessons learned, and have informative discussion on this topic.

Purchasing the Land.

Let the games begin!

We wanted to Purchase land in the area that my wife's family resides in, Negros Occidental,

Once people knew we were interested in land the games began. What I mean by this is I had a line of People offering land to sell from every spectrum. I quickly narrowed down the offers when I said to all interested parties to bring their Title and Maps to me.

The offers went from 20 to 5 quickly.

I asked my wifes father how much he would pay for land in the area, to get an idea on the value of land in the area. For the type of area we were looking his answer was P200,000-p300,000 per hectare.

We narrowed the offers to 5 different pieces; my wife explained to the owners we would only pay p200,000 per Hectare. Again narrowing to 2 lots, got rid of the gold diggers in that one.

We made an offer for 3 Hectares on the land we decided on, turned over the document to an attorney recommended to us. It took about six months to finalize everything. I highly recommed have a good attorney on this one. Cost for all attorney fees, p25,000

Interesting point. The original land owner had not paid the taxes on the master lot for some time, of the p600,000 we paid for the land p380,000 went to unpaid taxes. You might say the owner was very disappointed.

Here are some pics of the raw land

The plan is to build in two different stages, first a garage and living area to store material and have a place to stay while the main house is being built. The garage will be placed where the maroon multicab truck is in the picture. The house will built on top of the hill with a 360 degree view of our beach and rice fields.

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[jlg]

Post 2 Infrastructure

Can’t build without Water and Power.

We were blessed when buying the property with a year round fresh water spring.

So my first priority was to protect our fresh water source. I hired a few of my wife’s’ extended family to build a building around the spring so I could later install a temporary solar power water pumping system. Building included outside sink and shower. Total cost for concrete spring building, p24000.00 materials and labor

Then after the spring building was complete, I needed to pump the water closer to the building site. I chose to install a 500 gallon storage tank and another solar pumping station. Cost for 500 gal Best tank, p9000.00 cost for nipa house around tanks and pump, p2000.00

Lessons learned. #1 That Blue PVC Pipe is crap, Have to be very careful on installation and buy all the fitting at the same supplier (almost impossible) there is no standard, so from one manufacture to another may not fit. I have found an acceptable solution that I will post later when installing the plumbing into the garage.
#2, no mater how clean the water looks Filter it. I have just a 5 micron pre filter and it catches a lot of stuff. Then for Drinking water for the workers I installed an Aquasana drinking water system. Purchased on e-bay, but information at this site.
http://www.aquasana.com/product.cfm?id=1
http://www.aquasanastore.com/
Total cost with deluxe pure water faucet $100.00 USD
Interesting note, now the workers bring larger drinking bottles like 4 liters and take it home full, they say that is some namit, tubig,( good water)

The Pumping system, I used Pumps Purchased from West marine at
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...llpartial/45/0

Pump 2-Shurflo Blaster 12v 45 psi 4 gpm USD $124.99
Batteries 2-16 plate p3000
Solar panel ACC-10010 BatterySAVER Pro-Kit 15W Solar Charger 2 $159.95
w/regulator
http://www.batterymart.com/battery.mv?p=ACC-10010

Total cost for system. P80,000, the look on the local kids face when I sprayed them with water from 20’ away, priceless. They loved playing in the shower as well!

UPDATE AFTER COMPLETEITION April 22, 2006

These pumps and solar panel worked great for construction, but under the extreme demand of a western life style, (long hot showers, laundry, dishes, washing the equipment ect) I found the batteries to loose charge in about two days. I really don’t like hauling a 40 lb battery down to the spring house every other day. So you would have two options. Option 1, install about a 100 w solar panel at the price of around $500.00. Option 2, install a power line from the main house to the spring and run a small ¼ to ½ horse 220v pump. Since I have back up generator water during a power outage is still supplied, total cost for around $250.00

Under option 1 there would be no need for a battery since a 100 watt solar panel would run this pump direct. But for extremely long periods with little sun you might get stuck without water. A larger reservoir might be necessary.



Here are the pics.

[jlg]

Bunk House, Needed a place to house workers and store materials,

Price to build Nipa, Bunk house, p17,000 labor and materials.

Hand tools for building p25,000 ( basic hand tools needed for entire project)

Build time one week, complete with kitchen.
Last pic is having some fun hillclimbing!

Pics




[IMG]

Excellant post, please keep us informed on the progress. Hope all goes well!

[jlg]

Excavation,

First I stopped by a few equipment rental places, Lets just say they seen my white face coming. The prices I was quotes for crappie equipment was more than stateside price.

So I sent my mother law to the same place a few days later with a list of what I needed.

She signed a contract for the excavator for p1330 per hour, operator and fuel and all maintenance included, and p15,000 delivery. 2/3 less than I could get. The nearest equipment was a 2 ½ hour haul away so I figured this was a bargain, I was right, two days later the machine arrived after three flat tires and a broken trailer. Upon offloading the machine the starter froze on, grinding into the starter flywheel. The operator didn’t have a clue what to do he wanted to return the machine 2 ½ hours back for repairs. I would have nothing of it, I disconnected the power lead to the started and told him to continue to the site, with a look of amazement on his face he did. Then I rebuilt the started bendix on the machine so we could get a bright and early start the next day.

I can honestly say I thought there is no way this piece of crap will finish the job, I thought we would burry it on the job.

The machine never stopped except for water and fuel for three days, wheeew.

He completed the site excavation, dug the septic tank, and widened our access road to the beach. I gave the operator a huge tip!

Total cost

31 hours at p1330=p41230.00
Delivery p15000.00
Total p56230.00
Lessons learned,

#1 Mother Law is a great negotiator
#2 don’t underestimate the crapy looking equipment.


Pics

[jlg]

Floor Plan Shop/Garage/living area

Ok, here is the drawling for the shop.

Disclaimer

The reason I am building a simple square building is to get used to the idea of how to build in the PI, after completion I will undertake the task of building the house.
Any suggestions or corrective criticism is welcome and appreciated. One can never learn too much.
Also, to learn how to communicate with my construction crew
Learn what suppliers can be trusted and how to get the best value for my money. (Not the cheapest)

Train crew how to build following a plan and quality before speed.

Lessons learned
I need to find a good architect engineer that has good Ideas, designs, and understanding of new building practices. Any suggestions?
the last two pics are me having fun again, after all I'm supposed to be on vacation!
pics

Great info! Keep it coming please.

[jlg]

Thanks for your support JD, I agree, when I first decided to undertake this task and spend 8 hours, scanning, sizing and narrating, this post I had a great feeling that I was helping my fellow Asawaions, I realized early on that words would only do so much, and I would be flooded with request for pictures, so I scanned and scanned and scanned. I have so much more useful information to share. With no disrespect to the moderators I believe this is what this form is about and I attempted to give back from what I have taken so much from. It’s up to them if this post is to be completed or not. I believe this is important enough to offer any amount of money for the addition space I am taking up!

JLG

it looks like we've got someone here who knows what they're doing....great job!

what area of negros are you? the asawa is from the bacolod area. we're in vegas now and for the foreseeable future. if you need specific help with anything, pm me. i work in the building department here.

JLG
4 STARS BROTHER ****

When I first started reading the post I was overwelmd at the amount of detail and effort you put into your posts.

I had to read on and as I read into your informative description of your works with the beginnings of whats looks to be a reeally nice home.

Let me say thank you and please do continue.

Its been posted many times over...What does it take to build a ome in the Phil?

Now we have a really solid post contribution from you on this topic.
Thank you for your wonderful insite given thru your words and effort.

JLG (what may your name be by the way?)
Let me see if I cant have this post turned into a STICKY so it always ride at the TOP of this section.

Great post brother..
Again thanx!

Please do continue.

And if you need the picture links hosted here at asawa I am sure we can arrange somthing.


Asawa Moderator
MarkUSA