When the husband was home last Christmas we were able to check the house and lot we are purchasing in Antipolo. It isn’t that big as compared to our house here in Marikina but I am still excited to see it being built. Right now we are halfway through in paying for the equity. I have not yet sit down and computed how much is left but I am sure that by second half of this year we would be seeing yet another investment come to rise.

If only we have enough cash, we would certainly be buying the house and lot that is inside the subdivision where our house is located. The house is a bit on the run down side but it’s being offered at a cheaper price. It’s 70+ sq. meters and being sold at Php 840K. With some minor repairs and new paint we can have sell it again at a higher price. Unfortunately, the husband and I decided that it’s not yet time since we are still paying for our house and on the process of acquiring another property in the faraway land of Antipolo. haha.

Okay, today, the little girl and I went to the mall to do some shopping of course. It would be the first of many trips for us because I am trying to shop little by little and divide the stuff I am going to buy to avoid heavy loads to carry. But unfortunately I am unsuccessful because today I carried five heavy bags. haha. Fortunately, I haven’t gone over the budget ( that is according to my opinion..haha!).

Today I saw two mail that were inserted on our gate. I took them out and was suprised that I have two mails from PAGIBIG FUND. Monthly I received a letter from them about our payments for our PAGIBIG HOUSING LOAN. The second letter is a reminder that I have to replenish my POST DATED CHECKS since the one I issued last year were only until Nov 2009. Actually I have already the twelve post dated checks with me but I have not yet given them to my real estate agent. Hopefully she would be kind enough to bring them to the PAGIBIG office. How fast time flies. Imagine we are already on the third year of payment for our house. Next year, I told the husband that we would be doing a different approach. I want to save to make sure by the end of the year we can pay PAGIBIG some more. We are targetting to finish the loan in five years time instead of fifteen years like what we choose.

Uh..oh! I just realized that I don’t have any checks anymore. I have two check books, one is with the EPCIB logo and the other is with the BDO logo. For the EPCIB, I still have one, and the BDO still has eleven. But the problem is I have to issue twelve PDC to Pagibig before December. Yes! I am on my third year of issuing checks to Pagibig and that only means we are on our third year of paying the housing loan. So far, so good! Thank you Lord!

When Typhoon Ondoy was wrecking havoc in the country, our house was not spared by it, though its just a little inconvenience on my part. At around 11am of that disastrous Saturday, I saw water coming in our house through our kitchen door. I thought it was flood water already but fortunately it was just a leak from our roof. Seems likes the leaves from the tree outside has clogged our gutter. But I have it cleaned just a couple of weeks ago. Oh well.

Last year, I decided to renew my interest on the house and lot property which originally we planned to buy way back 2005. The property is located inside the Town and Country Estate in Antipolo. It’s a bit far and small. I think the lot area is 70+ sq. meters and the floor area is 30+ sq. meters. We decided to invest on it then because one, the price is a bit cheap as compared to other properties and second, I like the location. The house is near La Salle Antipolo.

When the land title was handed to us, I just stared at it for a few seconds. It was surreal! Owning our own house is part of our plan but getting it earlier than what we expect is really something that we are thankful for. When the real estate agent gave me the certificate and all the documents, she was telling me it was really time to celebrate. Well, she also have a hefty commission from the sale you know. lol. But of course, that is just the start. We still have a long way to go. And one of this is making sure that we are able to come up with the monthly payments. haha. There are responsbilities that have come with owning a house, that is :

Buying our house is one of the biggest decision that we have undertaken. It gave me sleepless nights thinking of the what ifs. I have this biggest fear that we might end up not being able to pay the amortization etc. But as the husband would say, we need to put all our worries behind. Everyday is a gamble. And if we don’t gamble we would just be left behind in the race, right?

Now that we have the property we wanted, the next step would also be the stressful. That is the payment. haha. At first I thought that those ‘RENT TO OWN’ schemes means you can move in even without any cash out, I was wrong. Just like those commercialized subdivision, wherein you have to pay for a certain amount for equity, PAG-IBIG also requires you to pay the seller a percentage of the sell price before they will grant you the loan. I was suprised by this declaration by our agent. I thought the PAGIBIG loan will pay everything for the house and lot we are buying.