goILOILO.com
Travels and personal perspectives on Iloilo and Panay Island
We buy real estate in Tigbauan, Iloilo
Tags: Asia Retirement, Iloilo Real Estate, Iloilo Retirement, Philippine carabao, Philippine culture shock, Philippine property taxes, Philippine Real Estate, Philippine Real Estate Taxes, Philippine Retirement, Philippine rice field, philippine water buffalo, tigbauan public market
Tigbauan Real Estate, Tigbauan property and Tigbauan retirement. We’ve learned a whole new meaning for “small town” and “rural”.
Pastoral landscape looks like Vermont
The lot we bought is not far from the Tigbauan, Iloilo village center, maybe about 1.5 km. It’s walking distance to the market and the ocean. The road we are on is short but really rough, almost impassible after heavy rains. No one else using the road owns a car or maybe even a motorbike. The road peters out beyond our property, but dozens more families must live further on, beyond the end of the road. We see the families walking out though the fields, fresh-scrubbed and neatly dressed as Filipinos almost always are, even if they live in a native-style house with no running water. Perhaps they’re going to the market in Tigbauan or they might even be riding a jeepney to the big malls in Iloilo City. Some might be going to work or to school, hoping for a nursing or merchant marine job overseas We just never see cars on our road or on the municipal road it connects to. They’re filled with people walking. On a school day, you’ll see school kids everywhere, lining every road to and from the many schools. They’re adorable in their uniforms, but by the hundreds and thousands — laughing, smiling well-behaved.
Our neighbor's SUV
So, I’m slowly adjusting to a new meaning for rural. My kids grew up in small towns in Upstate New York. Perhaps we liked Tigbauan because it reminded us of home - a pretty small town, a stone church, a cluster of old buildings downtown surrounded by farming countryside. While Tigbauan looks a little like Westport, New York there’s one big difference. My kids went to the only K-12 school there was. The total K-12 student population was about 300. Tigbauan, with about 50% less land area has eight high schools, five primary schools and sixteen elementary schools. The population of Tigbauan is over 50,000. Westport NY has a population of 1362. So, Tigbauan may have reminded us of home but it’s not. Perhaps this is emblematic of the foreigner’s experience of the Philippines. We see big shopping malls filled with the usual chains, we see Pizza Hut and MacDonalds and theaters showing Hollywood blockbusters, people speaking English and we feel right at home — but we’re not at home.
Property Taxes — a welcome contrast. When we lived on a farm in Upstate New York, our local real estate taxes were about $4,000 per year. The annual property taxes of our Tigbauan property are P129.04, however since we paid them early we received a discount. We paid P98.24 for 2009. Of course this will go up when we build a house but still low property taxes are a big benefit to life in the Philippines.
Carabao (water buffalo) "helps" our surveyor.....
Foreigners can mostly shield themselves from the foreignness, the good and the bad, by living in a Western-style house in an upscale subdivision and hanging out at the big malls. That’s not going to be possible in Tigbauan. The only shopping is in the public market. It’s open every day, but market day is Sunday and on Sunday it’s packed with shoppers and vendors, many of which come in from remote farms to sell their farm products. The older ladies like to smoke cigars which they roll of locally grown tobacco. There’s a tobacco section, in fact just about everything is sold there. But this is not a farmer’s market that’s a colorful adjunct to regular shopping. It’s the only shopping there is. If you’ve ever wished the mall and supermarkets would go away and things could be like in the old days, this is it — the near-medieval market! I don’t want to overdo the image of hardship. Much of what’s on sale is wonderfully fresh and inexpensive; tropical fruits especially mangos, papaya, jackfruit, bananas. Fresh vegetables — eggplant, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, peppers, green beans, okra, squash, onions, garlic, tomatoes.
June, 2009. Carol holds our first harvest from our now fenced lot. We also have an inexhaustible supply of kang kong which has spread over the lot.
The rice fields around us are mostly owed by a big landowner. We have seen a tractor adapted for work in wet, muddy rice fields. We have seen walk-behind tractors, similar to roto-tillers. But mostly we see Filipinos in conical straw hats, plowing with carabao – water buffalo, planting rice by hand, just like one of those grainy old movies about China. One of reason we bought the particular plot of land we bought is because wireless Internet access was available. We’ll build our house, sit on our porch surfing, watching the carabao plowing the rice fields around us. We’ll walk to that medieval market to shop. For sure, it’s going to be a seismic change. Stay tuned!
Read all about our Philippine House building Project at http://goiloilo.com/building-our-philippine-house-index/
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Posted by GOIloilo on 08.12.08 12:12PM under Iloilo Real Estate, Our House Project, Perspectives, Tigbauan, Iloilo
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Posted by Emmeline on 09.07.08 1:42 pm
hi. You seem to be very proud to be living in Iloilo. I am from Iloilo too but currently working on Guam. My wish is to someday go back in Iloilo.
Posted by RYErnest on 11.30.08 7:34 pm
Nice post u have here
Added to my RSS reader
Posted by Our house project: building a hollow block perimeter wall at goILOILO.com on 01.31.09 11:30 am
[...] http://goiloilo.com/our-tigbauan-home/ [...]
Posted by jim monreal on 06.08.09 10:42 pm
Congrats, Bob and Carol! That was a quick harvest. Is that a patola Carol has on her hands? I thought the fence was finished only last month. Will be visiting again, for your updates on your house construction. Good Luck!
Posted by GOIloilo on 06.13.09 10:47 am
Hi Jim,
Yes, it’s patola. Also the lot is just over run with kang kong. We can’t harvest it fast enough! We use it in sinagang, cooked with coconut milk, kang kong adobo etc. etc.
Bob and Carol
Posted by kris on 09.16.09 8:49 pm
hello…..i chanced upon your website while browsing the internet for possible links to our municipal official website which was just recently built recently by our well-meaning staff at the municipal office. will it be alright for us to post a link to your site at our newly opened website? we want our constituents to have the opportunity to explore our hometown the best possible way. Thanks!
Pls visit our site http://www.tigbauan-iloilo.com for more updates on our town.
Posted by GOIloilo on 09.17.09 6:39 am
Sure, you’re welcome to link to http://goiloilo.com
Bob and Carol
Posted by Anecia Ngalongalay-Wakeford on 10.10.09 11:15 am
Hi,
Thanks for all the information. I’m from Oton and like you, bought a lot along the highway near the beach for my retirement home. I learned some stuff from you. I’ll start preparing my lot in January. I’m currently residing in Canada and will be visiting Phil. in Dec. for 3 months. I’m too excited to start building my project. I’m looking forward to seeing your new home. Too bad I can’t be in the Phil. the whole time to watch it being built. You made the right choice, Tigbauan is a very nice place, especially in the rural area. And very close to everything.
Posted by Gene Barone on 11.15.09 11:59 am
Thank you so very much for a brilliantly designed and expansively informative site. I have learned more from your observations than from a dozen guidebooks, blogs and other marginally ineffectual media.
I will be traveling to Iloilo in Jan/Feb with a lady who is native to the area. Perhaps our paths will cross as I too look for a place to retire in relative comfort……
My very best wishes to you and your wife and my sincerest hope that your retirement in Panay will be everything you could hope it to be.
Cheers!
Gene
Posted by GOIloilo on 11.17.09 7:33 pm
Thanks so much for your over kind words. Just email me if you’re in the area and perhaps we have lunch somewhere –maybe in our newly finished bahay kubo!
Bob Hammerslag
hammerslag@gmail.com
Posted by GOIloilo on 01.09.10 9:09 am
diovee_m
Submitted on 2010/01/05 at 3:25pm
i live in Villa Sto. Domingo Subdivision Tigbauan, Iloilo. It really is a nice place where you can enjoy everything . It is near the beach, the market, the town plaza, church and basically is not heavily populated yet. You can plan how to build your dream house with its cozy and breezy feelings to greet you every morning. Good choice for those who wants to maintain the atmosphere of privacy right at their doorstep. A place where you can truly call a home.
Posted by Building our Philippine House – Index at goILOILO.com on 02.08.10 5:22 am
[...] are not yet “live” but will become so as the project progresses. Our Philippine house: Buying our lot Our Philippine house: Building a perimeter fence Our Philippine house: Filling the lot Our [...]
Posted by faith on 07.31.10 4:23 am
What about squatters? If you buy a piece of land and you’ll not around for a while to look after it?
Posted by GOIloilo on 08.06.10 8:43 pm
Yes, this can be a problem. If your property is in a subdivision, the subdivision management and security MAY keep squatters out. They don’t want the subdivision turn into a squatter area before they sell all the lots. Fencing helps. Another possibility is putting up some sort of native house and having a relative live there. In that case have a written agreement so the relative does not establish a claim.
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