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EIGHT We are liking Dumaguete very much. It is just the right size for what we need and if we need a shot of the big city or a better place to shop it is so easy to drive the truck over to Cebu. Just four hours away by barge and then Cebu roads. Oh I forgot to mention that Lynn found us a maid/cook and a driver/fix it guy to make life easier for us. We pay them each 1,500php a month each will is about $29.00 USD. and this is for six days a week. Din Din is from the neighborhood and is our maid or helper as is the more politically correct term. Lynn is teaching her to cook for us. She keeps the house clean and is starting a vegetable garden outside for us.
Glenn is a nice boy also from the neighboor. He is married and has a baby girl. He is our driver and when he is not driving the truck he is washing it and/or the scooter as well as doing handy work and other chores around the house.
Presently he is building a chicken coop. We decided to get some chickenss for eggs and wellas to eat when they get fat. Lynn and I have been talking about where we should settle down and we have have determined that if we stay here which we think we want to do, it doesn't make any sense to rent. So, we are starting to look for property. Unfortunately, there isn't really alot of great beach front property to look at. There is lots of coastline but much of it has little beach which often dissapears during high tide. Another problem here is with road access to a property. Often times you have to negotiate (pay $$$$) with the future neighbor just to use whatever road they have built to get to their property which you need to use to get most of the way to yours. And of course it may not be enough to so you have to build more road to get to yours. And it can get real exciting and possibly expensive when you have two or more of these neighbors to deal with your road access. There is a great section of beach about 2 miles long. The beach is wide, the water beautiful with a marine santuary filled with beautiful corals and small tropical fish runs along this entire strip. Two of the most popular diving resorts are only a two minute walk down the beach and one of them the El Dorado has a great Restaurant. The property is located in Dauin proper and is only about 9 miles south of Dumaguete. In fact, the location of this property is the probably the best 50 miles in either direction of Dumaguete. Well the good news is we have found a property in this area (actually this is the second property to tickle our fancy. Read on the next page the nighmare experience we had with the first one) which we are now negotiating to buy. The property is about 22,000 sq ft' 1/2 acre. Honestly we would prefer it to be at least an acre as this makes it more marketable if we ever decided to sell but 1/2 acre will do and we will be happy with it.
There is a slight problem with road access LOL but the seller is willing to make that part of the selling price along with other expenses involved here in property sales: Notary, capital gains tax, survey, etc..which can add up. There is a resort that is about 200 feet from the property line and this particular resort has ownership of a road that goes from the main highway as far as the resort. So the seller will negotiate with the owner of this road to allow us to use it as well as our being able to put the balance of the road on the remaning 200 feet that is left to go to our property. The resort also owns that land as well. The bad news is we really aren't even sure if the seller even owns the property. We went to the Bureau of Land Management today January 19 and they are saying there are at least 4 claims on the property. I guess we shall see what happens. Life in the Philippines, complicated yes, but this is the way is here. I hope it works out for us this 2nd go around. If not we are outta here and heading back to Davao. It
is also our plan to build a huge 70' long by 20' foot wide Pump
Boat. The hull is wood but fully covered in fiberglass to inhibit
worms who love to eat wood. The one below (owned by a dive resort)
is about 50 foot. We plan to use ours to go all over the philippines,
especially to the numerous more remote diving and fishing sites.
We'll be able to sleep on the boat for days at a time
This is a house we fell in love with. It is located at the El Dorado beach resort. Hope the owner doesn't mind us borrowing some of his design for our future house LOL. It is Mexican style and a third story penthouse which would give us awesone views. I am thinking we can build it for about $50,000 but in my version (there would be no downstairs the way you see it now) it will have a open air hallway/corridor that runs from the front of the house to the backright down the middle. The kitchen, office and entertainment rooms will be enclosed (to the left and right of the corridor) but the living room and dining room will be open, facing the sea. One on the left of the corridor the other on the right. We are thinking about 22000 sq ft total. 800 downstairs, 800 upstairs, and about 600 sq' for the penthouse
This
is an idea for a Beach house we might like to build on a 2nd property
we are looking at on another Island. This island called Samal is
much more primitive with unreliable electricity and no Internet
or TV except by Satellite. However, the land is cheap, beaches are
soft white sand and beautiful coral reefs are swimmable from shore.
We Figure it to be 1,000 sq ft with two bedrooms, one bathroom and
an office. Living room and dining room would be located outside
on a wide porch facing the sea.
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