Living in The Philippines > Lodging: Finding A Place to Stay "for a while"

LIVING IN A CONDO

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Mentalist:
Hi Guys! What do you think is the advantage of Living in a condo??

bigrod:
As a foreigner you can own it in your name, no yard maintenance.  Downside live on upper floors and elevators stop working, neighbors on other side of the wall, need to buy a parking spot, condo association fees, etc.

Chuck

Lee2:
We live in a condo in both Florida and Cebu thus my opinion is that the good items of living in a condo outweigh any bad items FOR US, and to cut down on the bad it is necessary to pick a unit away from the garbage chute, the elevator and the stairs, thus usually at the end of the hallway away from most other units.

The good is it is usually quieter most of the time since no roosters, dogs, parrots or other pets are allowed in most condos and loud music is not allowed inside or on the property
.
No outside maintenance to do except clean the balcony, the window if any, and the sliding doors.

No smell of dog poop from neighbors dogs or of garbage .

Usually no children running around making noise although at times in our Cebu condo building there are some children living there.

No leaky roof, unless you are foolish enough to buy a penthouse, we had been in a number of foreclosure penthouses here in Florida when looking to buy a condo and most of them had roof leaks, possibly why they ended up foreclosures.

Security, controlled access is a big thing, we enjoy driving in past all the guards and not having to ever worry someone might follow us home, that has happened in the past to a few of our neighbors when we lived in homes, so a gated community should also work to prevent this.

On the security issue, it is also nice that we are able to lock it and leave it, hard to do with most homes without leaving someone to watch them for you but we do have some nice neighbors on the floors we live on, who are nice enough to keep an eye on our units when we are gone, as well as cameras inside.

The amenities is also big, gym, pool, social area, bbq's and more depending on the building you buy in.

No need to do much in a typhoon, just bring in the balcony furniture before the storm.

Downside is sometimes noisy neighbors, usually that can be handled by the management.

Also many condos in Cebu only have two elevators because the builders know many units are only used part time as well as many are bought by OFW's as an investment, so should one elevator go out, then that can be a pain, thus IMO never live too high up that you cannot walk down the stairs or up them in the very rare occasion that both should be out at the same time but that fortunately has never happened to us yet, what the future holds is an unknown.

Another downside might be ants and bugs if your neighbors are pigs and unfortunately, and from our experience with other people, that is true in homes and condo, in Cebu we put out boric acid mixed with brown sugar and water and should we ever find anything besides ants, then it is dead but ants have been a problem every years in our condo in Cebu sometime after we arrive, until we mix up a new batch and then that wipes them out for the months we are there. On a side note, luckily we never have bugs in our Florida condo and rarely have bugs in our Cebu condo and again I think that is because of picking a location that is away from the garbage chute and as far away as possible from most of the other units.

Both the wife and I enjoyed condo life so much after buying our Cebu condo that we sold our home in Florida and bought a condo there too.

Hestecrefter:

--- Quote from: Lee2 on June 16, 2017, 08:13:08 PM ---No leaky roof, unless you are foolish enough to buy a penthouse, we had been in a number of foreclosure penthouses here in Florida when looking to buy a condo and most of them had roof leaks, possibly why they ended up foreclosures.

--- End quote ---

I think the leaky penthouse roof issue depends on the jurisdiction where the condo is situate.  Where we live, by law, the entire building envelope, including penthouse roofs, is common property and it is up to the strata corporation to maintain it (them).  A penthouse owner contributes to the repair cost only to the extent of paying monthly condo fees, like all other unit owners.  All owners bear the cost of any roof repair.  The fees they pay are based on what is here called "unit entitlement".  The owner of a 1,500 square foot unit pays proportionately more than the owner of a 1,000-foot unit.

Lee2:

--- Quote from: Hestecrefter on June 17, 2017, 12:51:44 AM ---I think the leaky penthouse roof issue depends on the jurisdiction where the condo is situate.  Where we live, by law, the entire building envelope, including penthouse roofs, is common property and it is up to the strata corporation to maintain it (them).  A penthouse owner contributes to the repair cost only to the extent of paying monthly condo fees, like all other unit owners.  All owners bear the cost of any roof repair.  The fees they pay are based on what is here called "unit entitlement".  The owner of a 1,500 square foot unit pays proportionately more than the owner of a 1,000-foot unit.

--- End quote ---
Agreed, but who wants to have a wet ceiling a lot of the time, it seems to me that roofing companies must not have not perfected putting roofs on those tall flat roof buildings because I had seen roof leaks in quite a few buildings that we looked at in Florida including some pretty high end buildings and the building we bought in in Cebu also had roof leaks down to the penthouse units, thus we refused to buy those units even when some of the ones in Florida were such a deal that they were very tempting to buy, and especially when compared to the cost of other units in the same buildings.

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