This isn’t really news given the actual purchase happened back in 2017. A friend of mine (and you’ll see him later in the video below) who is a real estate broker showed me some properties that were on pre-selling back then and I thought it was time for me to get my own place. I’ve been working for 10 years already by this time and to be honest, I have spent most of my money on fleeting things – not that I regret them, but perhaps it was time to invest in something that could last a lifetime. Haha. Peak adulting.

I’m grateful I made that decision because we wouldn’t have a house now if I didn’t! The one we were living in got sold by my uncles/aunts on my father’s side as it was their family property. I’m also so lucky that the turn over happened in the middle of the pandemic. Because I’m working from home here in Cebu, I was able to manage everything personally, including the renovations, furnishing and buying of appliances, getting the utilities hooked, etc!

So, without further ado, here’s a video taken by my friend of the house when it was just turned over! I’m glad Peejay took a video of this because I have something to look back to – it was the first real property I purchased after all!

So, this house is a two-storey duplex, with three bedrooms and 2 bathroom/toilets. It’s located in the island of Mactan, which is the touristy area in Cebu as it is where the international airport is, it’s filled with beach resorts, and has a lot of different kinds of restaurants. Before the pandemic, you’d see a lot of foreigners around so it’s got that chill, holiday island vibes – but at the same time, it’s also a city so convenience is not sacrificed! Mactan is a prime area that would for sure become even more high value as the years come and tourism resumes again!

I kept this purchase a secret from my family except for my brother who was living with me in Manila as of the time I decided to buy it. So, it was a surprise for my mom and my sister when I brought them to visit for the first time last January!

After the property was turned over, I had some renovations done, mainly because the kitchen area was located outside of the house, at the back (you can see this on the video). So we had the walls extended to bring the kitchen in, and this also allowed us to add an extra room on the second floor (on top of the kitchen), which now serves as the home office. This was an expensive renovation because it also involved a lot of custom work ensuring the appliances fit and also to add character to the currently blank interiors of the house! The kitchen is now actually the main attraction inside the house! Haha. I also had a gate put-up and had a roof installed on the garage. Bye money!

Then, I had to buy the appliances and the furniture, which seems like a fun thing to do, but is actually super stressful! We went to several places to buy tiles, shelves, kitchen appliances, etc. to find the cheapest options!

Finally all of the renovations were completed at around the 2nd week of June and we were finally able to move in. As of this point, only the kitchen was completed – we didn’t have beds or a sofa so I slept on the floor for almost a month until the rest of the furniture arrived (ordered them online, mostly from Mandaue Foam)!

There will be a follow-up post on how the house looks like now. I can’t say it’s fully done yet but having lived here for almost 5 months now, I can say for sure that it already feels like home! I’ll leave you with some photos of the “housewarming” when my friends visited to do a Rurouni Kenshin marathon!

I’ll end this here for now! Please look out for the continuation of this post soon!