Making the Down payment

I met with the realtor who handled my purchase at the Tivoli Gardens sales office. It was a bit embarassing because they were early and I was late. If you've never purchased a property before that required you to issue post dated cheques then you might be surprised just how tiring it is. First, I had to sign the contract. The contract is about a dozen pages, I had to sign on all the pages and I had to sign SIX(6) copies. I thought the worse was over but I was wrong. Next came cheque signing, I had to issue 33 post dated cheques, filling up the date field, amount field, amount in words field and payee field. I then had to print my full name and sign it. My advice is, don't do this in one sitting like what I did. Prepare the cheques in advance, say a dozen every day, so you don't end up with a strained wrist.

Preparing the Down payment

If you're like me, you probably don't have all your money in just one account in just one bank. To come up with the down payment, I had to open a checking account at the bank where my salary account is at. I then had to transfer most of what I have saved from my savings account in another bank to this new checking account. The first step involves going to the bank branch where the company I am working for opened my salary account. All that is needed is to fill up a form and make a PHP 5,000.00 deposit and pay PHP 120.00 for the cheque book. I also enrolled both accounts into the online banking system of the bank which will allow me to transfer funds between the two accounts with minimal fuzz. For the next step, I had to transfer the bulk of my savings to the new checking account. I am not comfortable with lugging around a large sum of cash so lucky for me, I already have a cheque book and used it to transfer the required amount. To know what happens next, stay tuned.

Making the reservation

It was a rainy and gloomy afternoon when I finally made my decision. Making a reservation for me means that barring any unforseen life changing event, I'm going to push thru with the purchase of the condo unit. I'm not in the habit of throwing away sizable amounts of cash. Before I paid, I asked to see the unfinished unit. I wanted to visualize where I will be spending the next few years of my life. Normally, they don't allow clients to see the unfinished units but they made an exception in my case. It really helped me see myself living in the unit. The down payment for a unit in Tivoli Gardens is PHP 20,000.00. I believe the amount is fairly standard as most of the other projects I looked at also asked for this amount. Once you pay this amount, the unit is reserved for you for one month. You have one month to complete the requirements otherwise the reservation you made will be forfeit. It was very convenient for me to make the reservation. I didn't have to bring any cash, instead I used my credit card to pay for the reservation at the DMCI sales office in Tivoli Gardens.

Choosing a condo

So you're like me, thinking about purchasing a condo to live in. Here are a few things I considered that you may want to also think about:

• Location - My ideal location is at most 30 minutes away from where I work. This requirement rules out a lot of the other projects since I work in Makati. Your own ideal location maybe driven by other factors like proximity to a school or hospital of choice but for me, being close to Makati is at the top of my list.
• Delivery - I don't want to wait too long for my unit. I want to live in it ASAP. This next requirement again crossed out a lot of projects on my list.
• Developer - I did some research on the developers of each of the projects to form an informed opinion whether they can finish the project or not. I checked their track record and read about any news of financial trouble or other problems.
• Amenities - I thought about what amenities I would be using frequently. I really would like to go back to exercising and an in-house gym would be really nice. Most of the projects I checked had this so it shouldn't be any problem.
• Monthly Dues - This is usually computed on a per square meter basis. This is the price you pay for the 24-hour security and the use of the amenities. This can range from a low PHP 50.00 per sqm to a high PHP100.00 per sqm.
• Move-in Fees - This includes the meter deposit and the association membership fees.
• Price and Payment scheme - I took a lot of time going over the payment schemes of the different projects I am eyeing. Most of the projects required a reservation fee, and a 20% downpayment and a move-in fee. I sat down and did the math to determine the total cash I needed to have to buy into a project. As it turned out, this last step eliminated almost all my choices except for a few. I also had to determine whether I can live with the monthly amortization:
• Total Monthly Net Income - Total Monthly Expenses > Monthly Amortization

With all these things considered, I chose to purchase a unit at Tivoli Gardens. It's near Makati. The first building was finished in January of 2009 and fortunately, they still had a few units available. The developer of the project is DMCI. I've heard a lot of good things about them and none of the bad things that would have immediately made me wary. The project includes a gym and nice water facilities. The floor area of my unit is a little less than 50sqm. The monthly dues that I will need to pay comes up to about PHP 2,500.00 which is not bad since I used to pay the same amount to Fitness First.
What really made the deal for me is the very flexible payment scheme:

10% downpayment (I can move in already after paying this)

10% spread over 12 months (considering I can already move in, this is like paying rent)

80% can be thru in-house financing or thru a bank loan

The payment scheme above made it possible for me to purchase a unit as normally, developers require 20% downpayment and I don't have that much cash in the bank.
If you would like to have a similar deal, I can refer you to the realtor who handled the transaction for me. They're a nice team of husband and wife. They're trust worthy and attentive. They don't do hard selling tactics and will allow you to think about your purchase and decide when you're really ready. You can email me your contact info at condoliving-ph@henyo.com and I will have them contact you.