An Expat Talks about Moving to Cebu, Philippines

What is the name of the city or town that you are reporting on?

Cebu

What type of housing do you live in? Is this typical for most expats in your area?

I don't know what's TYPICAL, but I can tell you what I have: 3 BR, 2 bath, fully furnished townhouse in gated community. By "fully furnished" I mean it came with a double bed in the master bedroom, bunk bed in one bedroom and a single bed in the third. Small refrigerator, flat-screen TV, microwave, and range. There's an oven but the landlady told us before we moved in that it doesn't work. Sofa, coffee table, and dining table. All the furnishing were fairly plain but solid. Dining table was cheap plastic and one of the chairs broke when I sat in it (I'm 185 pounds, bigger than most FIlipinos but not huge). I bought a better dining table, rice cooker, dishes, pots and pans. We have Internet, 200 Mbps, it's been very reliable. Not included in the rent, I'm paying I think it's P1500 / month. Oh, there's a big AC unit downstairs that cools the whole downstairs, and then 3 small AC units upstairs, one in each bedroom. Water heaters in each of the bathrooms, though the downstairs one doesn't work at all and the upstairs one has two settings: polar ice or third degree burns. Landlady says she'll get this fixed but hasn't yet. We're in a gated community with 24 hour guards, so I'm not very worried about crime. I suppose one of my neighbors could rob or assault me but that seems fairly unlikely. I understand many expats live in subdivisions that have a pool, gym, or other amenities. We have a basketball court and a swing set, that's it. I'm 65 years old and I don't play basketball or play on swings so doesn't do me much good, but whatever. We get frequent brief power failures, like the electricity will be out for ten minutes. Happens maybe once every week or two. Water here is unreliable too. We don't even notice because we have a big water tank, we draw from the tank and when the water is on it refills. Everybody in our neighborhood has such a tank. We have cell phones so I don't even know if landline service is available. I am on Smart and my cell phone reception is always good. My wife's cell phone is Globe and she has to go outside or upstairs to get a signal often. I also have an American cell phone that's been on roaming since I moved here, but I've never had trouble getting a signal. Philippine houses and apartments tend to be small by American standards. Like 1000 square feet is considered a big place here. Many apartments are 500 square feet or less. My place is a lot like a place you'd get in the US. Only real differences: We have a washing machine but no drier. Folks here hang clothes out to dry. No hot water at the sinks. Only hot water is in the shower -- we don't have a big tank water heater for the whole house, we have two small on-demand water heaters in the showers. Common to have a shower rather than a bath tub. Oh, and often there is no wall or curtain around the shower, when you take a shower it just sprays all over the bathroom. Don't drink the tap water. You get bottled water or have a water dispenser. We have a water dispenser with the nice feature that it dispenses hot and cold, so if I want, say, a cup of tea, I put a tea bag in the cup and then just fill it with hot water from the dispenser. No need for a kettle or anything. I've never seen central air here. You have AC in each room. Often there's an open floorplan where kitchen, dining, and living room run together with one big AC unit for whole thing. Typical to have a regular kitchen and a "dirty kitchen". The dirty kitchen is often open to outside in poorer homes, and always walled off from rest of house. So when you cook things with strong smells, like fish, it doesn't smell up the whole house. Water and electricity are less reliable than in US, but I haven't found them to be a problem. I'm told that in the provinces blackouts can last for days, but here in Cebu they're rarely more than an hour. Internet is slower than I had in US but much cheaper. In US I paid $100 / month for 1 Gbps, here I pay $30 / month for 200 Mbps. 200 is plenty for my household so I'm happy.