American Expat Built a 220 Million Pesos House in the Philippines

get ready to watch an exclusive interview with the owners Steve and Judith about building their remarkable three-bedroom house in the Philippines which sits on an 8,000 square m slot and has an 820 square m air con floor area inside during The Pick of the construction we had like um 250 workers we work 24 hours here's the schedule everybody look at it ask questions complain about it do whatever there's no excuse for getting a crappy house we wanted 4 M ceilings which is a great idea until you have to buy Windows we actually paid more per square meter for the driveway than we did for the beach I think we're going to have a zero power build it's partly decoration and partly um typhoon control we had seven issues with a contractor before I said let me talk to your boss to that simple decision sitting in an office in N Batar rais the budget I still don't know how much we had to raised the whole thing which was another expensive decision we drink Scotch in my office and a couple brilliant ideas we'll call judis judis move a wall that was another very expensive decision but Kenneth and mock said fine if you got the money if you think you're going to write a check and come back in your house suspend you're confused all right foreigners get off the airplane and they assume that things here are the same as where they came from they are not they are not the problem is not that there isn't cool stuff here the problem is finding it so I'm in Mongolia trying to find a big fan frustration I Googled Big Ass Fan and there is a company called Big Ass Fan true story they were making custom bamboo Stu for export they didn't want to sell it so we bought that piano which is a story all by itself it's an 1898 Brunswick billiard table uh we lived in South Africa Sierra Leon worked in the Congo work in Zambia I really need a job cuz I'm starving you know wife pregnant I'm starving then we retired fourth time I keep retiring hello guys today I'm with Steve he's owner of this l stun in property in the Philippines and Steve may ask you about why you choose Philippines why D definitely you can leave all over the world why you choose specifically this place I worked in Manila for two years we on a project actually amending out and liked it a lot and then left there and went to work other places my wife's from dagy oh so for for us this was very logical her family is here it's in the Prov dag Getti is very popular with foreigners yeah and within D MTI doin is just great it's very quiet it's very safe yeah so it was it made sense we got lucky we found the lot and built the house yeah and you built right on a beach did you have any issues with neighbors you said it's secure because uh many foreigners Americans they afraid of coming here we did we did not the the what with for sale with a clean title all the Filipinos can own land so my wife bought it yeah uh we did not have access to the highway which we had to purchase well so we purchased the driveway um we actually paid more per square meter for the driveway than we did for the beach but that was the price of secure access yeah because probably you bought it after yeah you have already so we we closed it it was condition a lot with no access is useless yeah right and it's a big problem here it can be it can be a big problem here so we we negotiated both properties and literally three groups me and the two sellers sat at the table the same day and everybody got their money and Steve H just saw Stan pool uh I think they call it endless pool right oh infinity pool but yes it's also both yeah in America it' be an infinity pool so can you tell me about size of this pool and the pool is 20 M by 10 m M wide the half of it is 1 M deep for kids and the other half is 2 and 1/2 M deep with a diving board um it actually strangely it that turned out to be a really good dive instruction pool right CU you can stand up here and you can do your your final test in the deep end yeah uh it's on the ocean uh we have Glass Walls along the beach which is called it a security wall mainly because it doesn't interfere with the Infinity part yeah right so when you look across the the wall is in the picture but you don't really notice it it's a bit of architectural trivia but human beings will not put their weight on the top of a sheet of glass yeah right let me think about it so when we were designing the house architect friend of mine is from Australia was the primary architect and he came up with this and we it started out being just a 20 MERS in the pool we since expanded in the whole thing we've never had a problem stainless steel Hardware stainless steel Foundation we've been through I guess three typhoons and well God knows how many earthquakes the house was finished in 2011 so there is nothing from tone no damages no it was we it's an engineered house Judith construction managed my wife she construction managed it but she had 136 drawings cool so everything was well I'm a Project Director Jo so you it was done it was done in Mongolia Oh by a company called imz imz one how did you finds them and why he them I was working in Mongolia oh it was the only play they were the best local engineering company and we can we can meet with them every week to review the calculations uh the design called the engineering team was oi severud was the head architect and four friends of ours from suro oh yeah very boy Lee tang and boy Gallas and ballar a group of people that I'd worked with on my first job in the Philippines so we went together to Mongolia to build that project and I if if I bought dinner and drinks they would help review drawings um as a project director in Mongolia when we built this house so my wife she had a con she had an engineer excuse me four Engineers one architect working for her then we had five foremen so she basically construction managed a do-it-yourself house because finding a contractor in the Philippines is tough yeah I and in 2011 it was really tough now it's better let's move in inside yeah okay I'll take it up all right oh my yeah everything in here is a little bit different yeah it's all custom made yeah everything uh we wanted 4 meter ceilings which is a great idea until you have to buy Windows now normal windows don't fit normal doors don't fit uh so that simple decision sitting in an office in Nan Batar raise the budget I still don't know how much but every window every door had to be custom made fortunately there's a company called Kenneth and Mock and Manila that have German Hardware German materials that do custom windows uh mostly for the big condo blocks in maati but for anything so they did this house so every window every door is is different um I hate bars on windows um I think they look like crap and they're unsafe because you know if there's a fire you've trapped your your family inside so these all have 3M security fil which basically translates to you can stand outside any window in the house beat it with a sledgehammer the glass will break but it won't fall out yeah because there is a plastic inside yeah there's plastic inside it's security plastic it's tinted security plastic it's called security fil um that was another very expensive decision but Kenneth and marck said fine if you got the money from security uh point of view you have uh protected glass you have um wall yeah glass wall around house and um you have security guard we have a guard house so we have 24-hour it isn't really because we're afraid because we're not uh it's because the house is unique we get a lot of people that just show up and want something yeah they're asking sell something to sell something to ask for a donation to tell us about a medical problem their family's having um we get a lot of requests for donations uh volleyball uni fors for the local team and we we do quite a bit um but we don't do maybe five or 10% of the request yeah uh because the house I mean it's a special how everybody knows it everybody knows us and we we do donate you know some things so what the guard does is basically manage the the people that just show up oh yeah and you also probably have a security come here oh yeah we have a camera system which shows which shows up at the guard house and in inside okay cool and here is Main Kitchen with stove uh fridge and everything you may need and it is connected with living room so it makes big space around it so let's talk about your furniture here um most of it is from the Philippines and the problem if you if you advice to people who want to build a house the problem is not that there isn't cool stuff here the problem is finding it oh right so for example the living room uh is Kenneth there's several Kenneth kaban settings he's a famous um Interior Furniture maker and interior designer in Sabo those two sofas he entered in a art contest in Singapore in W he entered of his art so finding Kenneth kaban play we needed help so we hired an interior designer these chairs are from Sabu you try to find them I mean you can find Bamboo beds and stuff at Hypermart yeah but find things that are special and these are all made for export but try to find it so she actually we loaded ourselves in a car and went to all these warehouses that are down little bangi roads or dirt tracks to and you get there it's this huge Warehouse with all these Craftsmen doing cool stuff for export that for export try to find it right I me I'm sure if you're in Germany or you know you can walk into a showroom and it's there but nobody here well excuse me we didn't know about it yeah but she was able to take us around and all this all everything here was made in SAU yeah that table's from China the concert Grand is from Poland it was it's German piano but it was refurbished at a company called sap in Poland so it's are you the one who play piano here this CL my wife the kids needed I've got twin daughters or 10 so the kids needed piano lessons and the space under a 4 meter staircase what do you put under there so we had a carab about cart so she wanted piano and I needed Furniture so we bought that piano which is a story all by itself but you know it's 126 year old German piano it was probably very hard to deliver here yeah it went very very well but it was a tri Treasure of Poland which means they could could not sell it outside of the EU so anyway it went to a guy in England and the guy in England sold it oh so we got anyway we got it but it was it was an adventure most everything in here has a story of some kind that the wine rack there came from SAU the furniture what is it it's a it's it's a liquor cabinet yeah it's just a liquor cabinet but and it didn't fit anything but I wanted it this was made on the highway at Bas bamboo they were making custom bamboo stuff for export so we sat down with him told him about the space and said what can you do that's local and and interesting and he came up with this it's all bamboo it's laminated strips it weighs a ton but it right now it's the kids um study area so your kids uh live with you yeah oh yeah we've got 10-year-old daughters that go to S University oh which is why the house is for sale I'm not really happy with the education system so you selling it because you want to move uh we want to move back to the US and probably put them in University here but Elementary and high school I'm not completely sold on so yeah we pack up and go we had two houses there that we sold a few years ago so we go do it again in US yeah houses are things you can always get another house yeah it feels like you have so deep experience in real estate we' we've lived a few places we lived in M lived in yeah I lived in Shas where I met my wife she was working for for Daniel um at the time so we've lived in China we lived in I lived in Mongolia she visited uh we lived in South Africa sier Leon worked in the Congo worked in Zambia so and worked in the Philippines so yeah all the stuff came from that's Kenneth kabano this is BAS bamboo in dowin basically oh yeah yeah yeah it's all weird collection of stuff the floors I can't replace ever again they're 20 to 8 in 1-in ples so we literally had to build a carpenter shop to do tongue and groove flooring and put it on the ceiling on the porer that's a South African artist it's his Manor yeah he also did he also did a mermaid in the corner which nobody notices but I long it it's piece of driftwood from Tamba and in this house there are two commercial air cons and around 20 22 split systems because of huge area inside this is the master bedroom which is a combination of Kenneth kabano and South Africa of all weird things and that's my wife's closet with the makeup area yeah it's a huge yeah the makeup's not a big Philippine thing but anyway we built it now she doesn't wear makeups fine I don't know too many girls that do yeah here it's not so popular like in the Western countries no it's required for work mostly but yeah anyway so the closet got a little out of control but it we showed it up and guys check out view from main bedroom when you wake up you can see ocean and sunrise of course you can close drapes if you want to sleep longer but you you can meet Sunrise right from your bed it's so cool see this is just a day bed and sitting area for no particular reason um master bathroom a Jacuzzi toilet and shower as a recommendation to your viewers never use steel tubing you know the four-sided tube anywhere near the ocean because they Rush from the inside out yeah so everything we do is angle because you can prime it and paint it and if there's rust you can see it right so if you do a visual inspection and you missed it with your paint you have warning well the galvanizing you get isn't very good to start with it's the cheapest they can sell out of China it's part of the problem but then on top of it when you weld you knock the galvanizing off right the process of welding removes the zinc and my office which is basically where I hide out cuz if you're married to a Filipino you have a social connection of the half the province so I I this is where I go at one time I was going to work from home so the idea was this is my work area and this is where people that came in to to talk and we still use it for that people come in to talk about anything we can sit in here and do it away from everybody else so it's your favorite place yeah it's my private place and it so from the desk it basically overlooks the ocean so I can sit here and and look across the pond and ACR out to the ocean um we look at the koi pond out front but it's partly decoration and partly um typhoon control oh oh everything the Y the the beach front is 78 met wide so the house is so big with the with all of the pieces it blocked drainage from the tennis court to the ocean it's about a meter and a half a fall oh so we had to design the koi the call it the river if you want to the the the the water structure out front is a collection Point all the gutters in the house dump into that all the rainfall and a heavy rain event like a typhoon flows into that water feature it doesn't pull up anywhere it all flows into the water feature then it goes over this waterfall into that pond and then that pond overflows to the ocean they're all lined with with the heavy HDPE so it was engineered from the beginning yeah was it yes it's cated right it's just basic civil engineering anytime you do a little house if you do a one-bedroom house you have to think about drainage yeah right where's the ring going to go this was big enough that it block the flow of water because it used to just landay and some so soaked into the ground some went out to that to the Sea we blocked that yeah and we raised the house this ground the house we actually raised a meter oh um to be sure the infinity pool feature worked correctly so here is meter Foundation yeah you can walk underneath the house it's 8 ft tall you can't you don't notice it from the outside because we took all that dirt and back filled around it but the house is significantly higher than the ground when we bought it because we wanted to be sure the infinity thing worked you don't want to stand on the edge of the pool to look at the infinity pool and see the beach yeah right so the only way to be sure was we had to raise the whole thing which was was another expensive decision yeah it's a great job how did you manage to find workers for this project skilled workers are easily available there there's lots of good painters and plumbers and the elect electrical was done by a company called Polaris and D meetti who do all of our work um they're very good electrical contractor they're not cheap but they're very good and they get good materials um you pay for all that privilege but they're here the problem you get into is budgets and managing them and and getting it finished like any job in the world the last 20% drags on and on and on because nobody they're unemployed right yeah so what we did is we we P we sat down with the the project team looked at the schedule and when we got a month from being finished we pulled 250 guys cuz at the end we had two shifts oh my we pulled everybody together and said here's the plan this is the schedule if you if you're finished in 30 days I'll give you a month's pay finished well the whole house took 11 months right so it's a very complicated house for 11 months but they did it lots of people lots of management full-time Engineers full-time superintendent full-time architect 220 people in total 250 at Peak that was a peak okay but to get them it finished we said I'll give you a month's pay as a bonus if you're done on time on time here's the schedule everybody look at it ask questions complain about it do whatever let's agree what it is and then we did that for about 3 or 4 hours and once we agreed the end date they knew if they got done they had a month's pay in their pocket extra so what much you I like bonuses every successful project I've been on had a bonus this is actually the the drainage control structure all the rain from the tennis court from everything flows into this goes around the house around my office and over the waterfall Steve you have here uh guards you have here people who care about your garden about cleaning about cooking probably how many stuff you have here the house needs um four people it needs with the kids well when Judith and I and the two kids are here it needs two Maze and there's a maze room with air conditioning and it needs two yard guys um at one of the yard guys Hy takes care of the pool so the pool was vacuumed every day you know take care of the filters run the all that stuff so it needs it needs four people now we have more than that because we own other real estate right and there's always something that breaks we've got a for he used to be our foreman so bong still on the payroll uh we've got another guy that helps Judith Cooks we entertain a lot and we've got a resort in Santa Catalina and some other stuff so the house needs four people and just that's a function of you how much money do you pay that's probably like maybe $900 a month for everybody the the maids live here and we feed everybody lunch and the two yard guys live AC on the other side of that wall so they were here when we bought the property so both the guys helped build the house actually and so it's it's sort of a funny extended family which is the Philippines you know you end up you end up working with people that that are always there you know and you kind of take care of them and Christmas Comes we pay a 13th month and you know it's their family yeah it's cool yeah yeah in fact the two the two Maids are family one of them is my sister-in-law the other ones her mom yeah so marry a Filipina you shall have a big family write that down somewhere and I absolutely love this uh stairs they are made from wood but feels so so nice so smooth really good quality yeah we're on the B the second floor balcony inside the house overlooking the living area the 12T fan and this gets used quite a bit it's an 1898 Brunswick billiard table oh that I bought from a guy in California U it's a big thing in the US probably Europe too yeah yeah for they tear down well where they you tear down Historic Hotel or something and there's been a pool table that's been in there for 100 years those pool tables or collector items what people do is they grab they buy them this part of the Demolition and restore them so this one I don't know where it came from but a guy in California had it he had refurbished it it's Walnut and it's not a standard it's not it's not the normal 8x4 it's whatever they did in 1898 just a bit of an odd pool table what about this fun where did you buy this huge fun um this space needed a big fan there and I couldn't find one so I'm in Mongolia trying to find a big fan and got nowhere so frustration I Googled big ass ban and there is a company called big assas fan true story what that coincidence so we had one here that was 10 ft and it lasted 12 years and then the Salt Air cuz we're on the beach the Salt Air got to the controls and we couldn't Salvage it we just couldn't get that fixed and they quit making them so they couldn't sell me a new board so I went back to him love the fan it's variable speed it's just cool and bought a chemical Duty fully sealed fan and I said well how long I'm putting it in we'll go 12 feet instead of 10 it'll be really cool that's running about 35% speed and we never run it at 100 cuz I'm scared to but they didn't want to sell it right because you you can't put that fan in a house I'm on the phone with this nice little girl in I think Tennessee saying well that's what I want she just can't sell it to you I said look I'm going to ship reship it to the Philippines yes two 20 volt 60 Cycle it's all the right things I said let me talk to your boss and another nice guy gets on the f I said look why do you care you've worried me about it I appreciate that thank you very much but I had one of your fans for 12 years this is a little bit bigger he says Fine $112,000 fan but it'll last forever and then it took us it weighs 120 kilos yeah so we've we've got a structure up in that ceiling it took a welder and a structural engineer a week just to deside everything and get it secured then we added the safety cables just in case it's it's h on that it's 3in angle that's welded and it goes up there then there's but the ceiling the whole house is column and beam so if you picture uh a structure made out of sticks so you've got beams across the bottom and columns up here and then they're connected by and they're bit you're standing on a meter thick by 800 wide concrete beam that's hidden by Timber that ties the house together front and back because the original design had a retaining wall what we wanted to remove the walls so you could come in the front door and see the sea look across the pool and see the ocean and it took us took a structural engineer a guy named boy leang in in sural City a friend of ours boy came up with the plan on how you did this and then we ran it past the structural engineer with imz w and they finally there's more there's about 10 tons of rebar but there's beans in the ceiling that tie that you can't see them but they're big concrete beams going across time the roof together because the roof Pro is steel and clay tile from America the clay tiles are made by a company called us tile cuz we wanted it's a real high quality thinner tile I didn't want this big you've seen them around the concrete things so we didn't want that so we imported I think it was two and a half containers of roof tile from the us while we but that's what that's suspended on we've got steel beams across the top of the concrete beams and then they come down and they all UND or yeah yeah they're all painted we Prime and paint everything and two 3 in angles we manufactured it we got on the phone with the engineers and we manufactured it and it's heavier than their standard but I couldn't ship their standard here it was just how do you ship something that big on an airplane so what we did is we welded it we manufactured it then to Cod it we we made we took a 4in piece of sewer pipe cut it in half with a grinder and filled it with paint and then we put the 3-in angle in to where the paint ran inside and then rolled it to paint the to coat the inside imagine if that fell it killed whoever's under it's 12 kilos so you know it took us you know another a gallon of paint and a little bit of hassle but why you know you're but your guys won't do that they don't know to do that if you're welding to they call it tubing but is even though it's square or rectangle you C how do you coat the inside they don't and you can't see it to do it so even if you want to do it it's it's diff very difficult to do if you want if you want to and they don't want to do angle just use angle it's the same money or a little it's a little more because it's heavier and then you can see it this is the guest room and it's a small guest room with a shower a bath it's nothing special our idea we built the house was we would have visitors fly in for uh you know a short stay few days or a week and we'd stick them in here well then we had twins and now they don't fit so we we had to expand this room for twins so we we basically went out on the balcony and made it much bigger um this was this was just open balcony so we we came across and just added to it is a pretty simple Edition the the trick was we had do we have a stainless steel circular staircase and we had to to redo the balcony to to come up the staircase but every you know and that's we'll look at it that's built on a 6in stainless pipe and you know I think it's half inch wall everything on Salt's got to be stainless it's these are actually a PVC it's a plastic and the hardware is stainless but you can't put normal steel yeah they build the rest on the ocean but the design was this is the kids player it's when they're teenagers they can bring their friends over and they can play in the ho they can have the hole upstairs they can have the pool table they can have this we'll put whatever out there they want it's a good space for for for younger people so they can have their privacy they can have the space but they're H okay so I know where they are I know one more thing in this house what makes it special and especially for kids I think they definitely enjoy it and this is a theater with a full bar M so movie nights or whatever it's got a built-in sound system it's all designed by a guy in Colorado and they they use this quite a bit we had the PlayStation up here but I actually pulled it out because they were up here too much your private Cinema it's so cool it's it's a it's amazing how often we use it you the kids all invite their friends over and we'll put all whenever and with the internet we put starlink in yeah and so downloading stuff's pretty simple and the quality we like starlink but the stuff that's got fiber optics actually faster right so is streaming whatever pretty simple and it works good we we put a whole house wi-fi system when you there's six routers off of I forget what that's called but we because the house has so much concrete and steel in it oh you don't have signal inside yeah one Wi-Fi repeater doesn't do it so we have six oh and we put one of them up here just to be sure that the the kids could stream videos it was big enough room that we put the gym equipment at the back yeah this uh house you're approaching on this house reminds me Jon's house he also over buil it and all over cared about everything well you're you're in an earthquake zone you're in a typhoon Zone yeah and because the water is so deep we don't get a sto storm surge like you would in a normal Bay or up a river system where the water comes up the shallow Beach and then is channeled in and like Florida yeah my brother lives in Fort Meers they had a hell of a storm in some areas got eight or 10 10 ft of water um here outside the Marine reserve it falls off really fast it's it's over th I think it's a th000 feet plus between here and Oppo Island we've had I think three typhoons one was a super typhoon Direct Hit all that meant was the family came over we the Gen set came on and we were the only source of power for the police department for 10 days well they were bringing all their cell phones and radios and stuff here to charge things and do you use solar we do have solar panels now they've only been in for a month before we did not we just we have a diesel jet back up oh so now we have solar and a diesel backup how many kilowatts like 20 I think 40 at Peak we have 50 we have a 51 um kilowatt inverter but our Max production has been 41 we've got 92 panels and they're new we got net metering approved February AR 17th I think so I believe based on the bill we've got I think we're going to have a zero power bill so we generate excess we sell it to NCO during the day we get credit and it works Steve how much cost to maintain these cost it's honestly it's always something you know gutter leaks um a door sticks uh it's always something uh right now it's not bad our single biggest cost was powered by far but I think we fixed that I we just doing the math on the partial Bill we just paid I think we fixed that um so yeah there will it's a big house there will always be something a handyman needs to do you know it's expensive not so much I it's like two or 300 and a lot of it is you know you can't let a car or a house get ahead ahe of you right so if you you know my dad told me if you own a car as soon as something breaks fix it if you don't one day you wake up and it's piece of so we try to well an example when we put in the solar system there's a net meter just outside the security required by NCO so we had to run this 4in conduit all the way out to our new meter it's it's orange looks bad so by the end of the week it'll be green they match the wall so little things you you just have to keep them up yeah every Resort will tell you that too I'm sure they keep up with it yeah sure guys I have a unique opportunity to talk with jwi she's Constructor yeah main Constructor of this house can you tell us about your experience here what your main obstacles and uh your Solutions yeah um I we heard actually five five or six Engineers to help me with the construction and um during The Pick of the construction we had like um 250 workers so we had three ships and um we worked 24 hours just to be able to to get on the target which was um his birthday apart supposedly um open house on his birthday but um yeah we had s issues with a contractor before and um f it did not work so that's why I hired my own team and um luckily we were able to pull it out and uh were you on a side like uh every day yeah yeah I I came here you know every morning early and then goes home when everybody's finished so basically fulltime how did you manage uh all expenses because they can be like not reasonable you know they can overprice you how did you manage this yeah yeah I I did it myself like run to the bank pay them in cash so I really have to see how uh the the flow of the money so I am managed everything when it comes to expenses yeah same so you go in all details about how well I forgot if she had an account the his payroll is like she said is every week in cash you're right and all the materials are in cash yeah yeah and I have to go with my purchasing officer as well so I I do the payment myself and uh how did you transfer it here by boats or by plane uh we how many containers we had five of materials from China which were the granite yeah five 40 Footers yeah got 40 foot weird things like these light fixtures or carved Stone I've never seen them before we've found them by mistake in Shanghai a friend of ours Robert tan and I went to B went shopping with a big spreadsheet and S Judith was a proud receiver of five containers in a spreadsheet saying here's what here's your stuff here here's where they go yeah here yeah here's the room numbers that they go in here's your stuff what was the black the the marble gr granite countertops the granite tiles um the tiles are either granite or Italian so we those were imported from subbu so the people that sold us like the balcony is all Italian tile the bathrooms are all Italian tile uh we couldn't find and this was 13 years ago I guess yeah yeah uh 14 yeah if today you can get good tile and dagati 13 years ago you couldn't yeah it do hard then yeah it was all local stuff it was sold completely on price so we had to buy we had to import it all but they bought it in the roof tiles came in containers yeah yeah and they the people was that andur andur Andor uhuh so they vain they they clay tile yeah they did so they brought the they imported the materials and they installed it Styles yeah okay may I ask a personal question about your job how did you make this Fortune what did you do for living before oh Steve it's Steve's money not mine she's working as an engineer and being paid Filipinos overseas are not paid the same as expats overseas it's one of wife's unfair things um but yeah so she was making good money for the Philippines but not enough enough to pay for the house and I was the Project Director with stock options found a really good job that was a very successful project so the Sher price kept going up and life was good okay Steve can you tell about your career uh path how how did you come to this Fortune it's ridiculous um I taught school for three years it was starving as most School teachers were and then I but I'd work Summers for a mining company as minimum W minimum wage labor but I called them up and said I really need a job because I'm starving you know wife pregnant I'm starving and they gave me a job as an engineering trainee a metallurgical trainee and then I came up through the technical stuff he was in US in US yeah and then that became three states in the US cuz I was one to move and then Philippines back to the US Indonesia sorry Indonesia for 3 years where I was the vice president of engineering construction I've got a patent of all the dumb things for a school teacher but but another bit of advice for your audience if you go to engineering school in America or or Russia or Europe they teach you everything in some electoral some everything they teach you all the branch is to give you a general background if you work for a company you have to know everything you have to know that you have to know their engineering right what applies to this which is a lot less to learn than everything so all I had to do was learn that bit so that I learn that bit and then we wandered around the planet and you know we're lucky you know the $65 billion dollar job in Mong Olia was one of the best groups of people I ever worked with my boss was great the pig guy that owned the company goty crazy person named Robert Freeland was entertaining as hell and genuinely bright it was a fun job right and it went great I mean we were 40 kilome no 100 kilometers from the Chinese Border in the middle of the GOI desert so every day was circus you know 110 trucks a day for two years it was a crazy after that job you picked up another job in South Africa which is the the my shave group of people yeah and the cono Congo y that was South Africa and the Congo and then we went Shust for almost a year Brazil they were retired fourth time I keep retiring and people call you know help can you help us out with something so then we went back to no they were to Brazil for 3 months and uh tried to live in the states tried to live in the states for 5 months we didn't out away we wanted to do that this was much better than that and yeah did I end up working for a kazak company based in Africa of all the weird collections with a with a bunch of young Russian guys oh yeah yeah seriously was it good experience it was an excellent experience these are seriously smartart C I mean like seriously smart kids Russia produces great chess players yeah right where where he gets exciting is when you have really bright hardworking people in an organization that's just sort of like ah what yeah what what holds anyway some of the some of the brightest hardest working people I've ever work with um what can you advise to people who is going to build some luxury property in the Philipp because there is an opinion that it's not a good idea to invest in a Philippine Philippine real estate market especially for foreigners do you agree with it or not and what you can suggest for for people who go to do it don't cut Corners especially on the materials because you know we're prone to earthquakes here and floods and stuff so make sure you you consider everything when you build uh when you do construction here in the Philippines yeah there's three there's two questions one is building something one is do you invest here at all building something on the Judith you can't cut quarters yeah um construction management 101 the better if so something's defined the more likely you are to get what you want all right foreigners make they get off the airplane and I see it all the time and they assume that things here are the same as where they came from America Europe Australia wherever they are not they are not uh there aren't standards written down quite often no one is going to come from the government is going to come inspect your property during construction they're not right you get a building if you do it you get a building permit to start so you submit drawings that are required by law and you get an occupancy permit after it's finished they got no idea what you actually built yeah did you put the rebar in did you use the wire you said you were good did you do the plumbing that you was on your drawing I got no idea other than what you can see which is what 10% yeah so there are no the rules are not what you're usly implemented right so that you're whole construction approach has to consider that right there the government is not going to cover for me so if you go in with a two-page stick F drawing here's the house I want you're doomed you're at the mercy of I don't know what yeah right you could do it in you could do it in the in I look I assume you could do it in Germany yeah right because they got building cones and the government requires the proper drawings be submitted and once you start construction the inspectors will come in on a formal schedule to be sure it's done correctly now you may not like the result it may be ugly not what you thought the windows are terrible but at least it's not going to fall down okay it's not that way here or anywhere else in Asia that I know of it's just not and it is not right so know that right so Define the project spend extra time to put your rebar schedule in to get your house design to make sure you don't want to change anything because I we changed stuff during construction and made her insane we get we drink Scotch in my office and a couple brilliant ideas we'll call Judith Judith move a wall yes the engineer would change it and send her a do drawing she's like not a happy person and so Define it up front right as you would on any project then you're not disappointed even if you got a German Builder you don't want to change it once you start because he's going to kill you he's going to God your price went up so Define it very carefully then if you can't watch it every day pay somebody to watch it Monday yeah hire an engineer some excellent engineers in the country excellent Engineers hire one of them they're not what you think they're they're not as expensive as you're used to so hire a good engineer to watch it on your behalf and ask for a daily update ask for paying for it yes but ask for a daily update get pictures you want to be sure he actually shows up if you're on here so every day I want a status record every day I want to know what's going that's what I did yeah oh yeah I got pictures every every so you did plan for day and then you put yeah photos and every time you know um all the schedules that we're doing here every day I talk to them and she'd send us how about this is this done correctly you know are you happy with this well because 136 drawings are not everything there's always uncertainty there's always things that aren't clear there's you know we've got guys they're English drawings of course but still you know it's not the way it's done here so you've got a good rebar guy reading a a rebar drawing done in Mongolia and he say I don't know what they mean so she would ask and I'd go to the rebar guy and say what do you mean and they solve the problem if you if you think you're going to write a check and come back in your house suspended you're confused you're just confused and it may you could I know I'm not saying this is going to happen but you could get something that will fall down and pay full price for it true or C doing Ty yeah yes so design it properly the engineering skills do exist here the construction skills do exist here you know so there's no excuse for getting a crappy house other than you didn't manage you just have to supervise it closely or pay somebody to bage it for you right there you go so so that's the construction side the investment and ownership side foreigners can't own land here yeah right so only through Corporation and it's not so even a corporation we have four well right I'm the shareholder on three of them for 40% yeah right so I'm a minority shareholder and the other shareholders are Filipinos M Judith plus three other people right you got a shareholders yeah hire a lawyer is my official advice for God's sake don't listen to Steve but I am not a majority shareholder of anything because I can't be as I understand the law as a Layman I cannot so I don't she does why you decided to open three or four corporations why you need it because we have a resort where that's our sale that we were we're trying to sell as a standalone business so you can cut all the shares right no need to transfer documents and stuff and so this house was was built by a company for real estate and construction but we've got you know car you can't have one company that does everything they have to be special purpose so if you want to own a bar or a restaurant that's a different kind of company than a real State company so you have to have a different company oh okay and I'm not a we have one and I'm not a shareholder in because foreigners owning bars and restaurants can be controversial so we just avoided the whole controversy it's 100% Vol mhm your way yeah yeah so it's a a good strategy to have someone you can uh deeply trust yeah or figure out a way to to be careful you know and I thought about this I thought you ask this what if what if you just met a girl and you think she's wonderful and you want to buy house and you've known her for three months yeah an official answer no you know cut protect yourself the easiest legal way I know and again hire a lawyer don't listen to Steve the dumbass is by that buy the house and at the same time lease the house get a 50-year lease on from her so it's fine to put it at her neighbor you're going to have to if you want to own it but get yourself a lease and the price of the lease is the price of the house uh so then everybody's happy she's got house in her name you've got a lease on the property right because you can own a house you you that's a different thing but forers can own a house and just can't own the land yeah so in this situation you know we were together and we built a house if she throws me out today I get half of it in the doors well before I maybe got 40% as a shareholder in the company but technically I could have relased it and then I've got control of the house it's not my house but then you can record the LI in get a lawyer you can you can put the leas on the title is an incumbrance right yeah as an incumbrance so now she's got her name on the property is completely legal you've got a place to live and there you go and guys uh this house is for sale so if you're interested in in this house how much does it cost $3.9 million furnished to2 million Paces okay so if you're interested you can uh message on email I will put in in the description and thank you for watching see you next videos bye-bye

Channel: Alex Kosh

Views: 758,651

Keywords: every house has a story, Dumaguete, Philippines, Dauin, house tour, luxury, expat, retirement, property for sale, American

Id: N3Lxb5zo0Sc

Length: 57min 6sec (3426 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 03 2024