Trying to make sense of real estate for sale postings

[manofthecoldland]

I am not in the market for anything, but am curious about what is see when I pull up my local city's buy and sell postings for real estate and rentals.

The monthly rental asking prices are sometimes clearly stated in terms of amount and sometimes minimum duration. But when it comes to lots or houses for sale, there are pictures with often meaningless numbers ( e.g. " P123456789", "Free", "P5" , etc. ).

I assume that, if interested, you are to contact them for some real numbers and details. This seems to apply to both very nice houses as well as truly shabby properties.  I sometimes wonder why they take the time to take pictures and post them, since practically no really useful information is given.

They seem to have a very strange or perhaps semi-secretive set of marketing strategies here, or maybe just ignorance. I know not.

I have lived here for 18 years and we do have our own house and several lots in various local barangays: having rented several places over the years before building in 2012 and slowly doing improvements and add-ons, so we are not totally unaware of the many local idiosyncrasies..... but the information provided in these attempted efforts to rent or sell properties leaves me wondering what people are thinking when they post these items.

Do you have any insights or clarifications re what you see when you look at FB Buy & Sell properties ?

Another cross-cultural conundrum.

I am thinking of having the asawa try to sell off some of her useless property holdings to provide me with some financial relief from her unceasing desire to assist needy relatives hit by the loss of jobs and always occurring deaths, typhoons, medical needs etc. Normally my aid is very limited, but it gets old despite the tight controls I put upon it. If the aid she wants to provide was coming out of her bank account rather than my income stream, I doubt she would be so 'saintly' and generous. Ha-ha. 

[jimeve]

2 minutes ago, manofthecoldland said:

I am not in the market for anything, but am curious about what is see when I pull up my local city's buy and sell postings for real estate and rentals.

The monthly rental asking prices are sometimes clearly stated in terms of amount and sometimes minimum duration. But when it comes to lots or houses for sale, there are pictures with often meaningless numbers ( e.g. " P123456789", "Free", "P5" , etc. ).

 

PM is the key 

[graham59]

Sometimes I think  being poor (as I am...and the rellies know it) is so much less stressful here.  

Our shack and land are paid for too. How much they are worth now...don't know,  don't care.  

[Shady]

5 hours ago, manofthecoldland said:

 when it comes to lots or houses for sale, there are pictures with often meaningless numbers ( e.g. " P123", "Free", "P5" , etc. ).

They want to make sure their listings aren't excluded from searches with maximum prices set, so it wouldn't be 123456789 unless they aren't good at math.  Same reason a zero is often "accidentally" added to lot sqm sizes...

[Snowy79]

I'd be happy if they listed properties that are still for sale/rent and used actual photos not stock photos. 

[RBM]

5 minutes ago, Snowy79 said:

I'd be happy if they listed properties that are still for sale/rent and used actual photos not stock photos. 

I gave up long ago to try an make sense out of local listings. Wasted  many hours trying to buy a near new car, nobody as in nobody would ever reply even when listed a rush sell. Ended up just buying new.

[Snowy79]

36 minutes ago, RBM said:

I gave up long ago to try an make sense out of local listings. Wasted  many hours trying to buy a near new car, nobody as in nobody would ever reply even when listed a rush sell. Ended up just buying new.

I had some horrendous experiences when looking for lots and properties.  Not just in one area also. From Puerto Galera, El Nido and Boracay.  The sellers would literaly ignore everything I said.  I had a list of 5 requirements and highlighted in bold if there was any of the 5 missing just forget it.  I wasted days and a lot of money visiting places to find out at times there was only one requirement that matched. Not just slight miss matches either. From stating 8m peso max and arriving to find a 14m peso property, facing West to find it faces East, clean full title to find it's tax declared, 50m from the beach to find it's on the beach (illegal). I was even shown lots in mangroves that still had the Environmental Protected area signs up.

One main Real Estate agent that I had been dealing with for weeks and had arranged 5 viewings with never even sorted out a single viewing.  The properties were listed on their site, I had about a dozen emails back and forward stating I'll book a flight and hotel for 5 days so I can view them. On arrival I went to their office to find out they only had one property available for viewing and it wasn't 3.5m but 12m peso.  To say I was pissed off was an understatement, the only saving grace was I bought another on the spur of the moment via another realtor for a bargain price and it's pretty much paid for itself now. 

[Dave Hounddriver]

52 minutes ago, Snowy79 said:

I had some horrendous experiences when looking for lots and properties. 

When I was buying I sent my significant other in to ask some pertinent questions.  The first thing they said to her (according to what she told me) is:  "You've got a foreigner, haven't you"

Locals put up with whatever crap they have to in order to get a house, or so it seems sometimes.

[Freebie]

Put an apartment up for sale a few years back. Asking price was P24 mill. Some half brain sent sms asking would I accept P12 mill.  Suggested he hone his bargaining skills in the local palengke.

[Jollygoodfellow]

21 hours ago, manofthecoldland said:

meaningless numbers ( e.g. " P123456789", "Free", "P5" , etc. ).

Facebook listings require a price or listed as Free so people who dont want to tell you the price put in the 123.......