Someones castle could be another persons nightmare.. The thing with property in the Philippines like most places in the world is you need to look at what you want in return and what stress levels your prepared to put up with. The picture above is the gates to our new home. At the moment just land,fruit and trees and maybe the odd snake..lol

But this will be developing from around June-July and we will start to build pages to show you how it developed and where things could have been done differently.

Getting back to this page to Buy at present you either need to be married to a Filipino or live in a condo. I dont see this option changing this side of the world freezing over. But buying is the easy option if you are married. You can get a very nice house for around P2m but would look at the option on the purchase to lease the property from your wife back to yourself for 50 years with an option of 50 year extension. That way your investment will be secure. Im not to into doing this sort of thing but most expats I know have had horror stories from friends where an expat lost property to his ex partner. Can you afford not to give yourself peace of mind? Only thing I would do with this also is pre-arrange a will so everything is in black and white for everyone.

Leasing Land this option would likely be the best for most foreigners who find a good landlord to strike a deal with. Also make sure you build in the option that any improvements (such as building your house on the land) is taken into account and an offer for sale on the end of the lease or will be demolished. To put to "as was". But you have to be realistic the money in your pocket doesnt mean your landlord can flex his wallet as far. So a long-term lease is the way I would go if I needed to.

Renting this is favoured by the majority. Purely down to less hassles, cheap rental prices and the fact you can move around a bit more than being fixed with a house. Also if your not 100% about your partner many expats are pretty secure in the knowledge the only asset is themselves and a plane ticket or a slam of the front door can close the book.

Downsides of being so secure the one area that does worry me with a lot of expats is securing investments to keep them secure but a lot of the time they keep control of everything even in death. If renting a Retire can live month to month on his/her pension but what happens when they die? His/her partner is left behind the pension stops and the kids and life you built up in your time in the Philippines is lost. I advise any retire who is settling down to at least setup a seperate fund and stick a bit of money in it each month for the time you wont be around anymore. No one ever wants to see any family homeless and pennyless.. never mind theyre own so please think long-term on this. Even if its to purchase a small house that you can set as your wifes allowance. Setup the purchase and lease back to yourself as explained then every month give the fund to your wife or if your happy with your pension bank it seperately as emegency funding until its needed.