Online House Hunting

Looking for a house and lot for sale? Looking for a house and lot for sale in the Philippines, preferrably Manila or Luzon part. Please help me to locate one. Thanks.

Pawn Value of a House...in Metro Manila? And Terms? Guys and girls..in case you didn't notice, I'm a foreigner, Permanent Resident of the Philippines. I have been doing some legal business here, but this one has me stumped a little. This is proposed by a family friend..tell me, deal or no deal? She has a house, 4 years old, Maligaya, Novaliches...personally I don't like the area, but anyway..a 4 year old well constructed townhouse, with a shopfront, currently unoccupied. Bill of Sale says she paid 2.6M in 2005. Deal 1..she wants 1M for a year...2.5% interest only, same as a pawn. She must pay me 25k, pesos monthly for 12 months..if not I get her house. Property is to remain unoccupied during that time..me or her, cannot use it. Deal 2...she wants 1M over a 5 years period..personal financing. She wants 2% interst per month paying 20k interest+17k per month capital repayment...after 5 years she would have paid me 2.2M..if she misses 3 payments, I get her house..BUT in this case she wants to rent out the house and shop. But as for me, I thought since it's a pawn, the property should be under my control. Kindly skip the warnings about a foreigner gettting scammed, I am well aware. What do you say to the above..deal or no deal? By the way at the start of Deal 1 and Deal 2, I get a conditional Bill of Sale and the Title to the property. Sherman..in my wife's name, forgot to add. Phoenix...why in your opinion is the Bill of Sale worthless..explain that. By the way, I don't like the deal, but I'm looking at it in a way that if I actually get the property I cannot lose...but... I'm getting great adivice here for free, so that's my scam....ha ha. Chinaman..that's 2.5% per month..not per annum.

How do insurance claim adjusters work, where in the web can I get free instructions to learn their skills? I am from the Philippines, the local practice of insurance loss adjustment is similar to and even patterned after law and the practice in the US. I have two homes destroyed by flooding last Sept. 26, 2009, in the worst typhoon called here Ondoy for the last half century in the Philippines. My two homes are in Provident Village, Marikina City, Metro Manila, it is the worst hit place in the whole Philippines. I filed my claim with the insurance company and they endorsed it to their "independent adjusters," anyway I have written about my problem elsewhere, so I will just paste it below: ---------------------- Home insurance claim, independent adjusters running circles around me. My two homes in Provident Village, Marikina City were destroyed by typhoon Ondoy on September 26, 2009. It is now January 6, 2011. And I am still working to get an equitable claim payment from the insurance company covering my two homes -- and not getting anywhere. They were insured against fire, and flooding, and etc., with Oriental Assurance Corporation at 3 million pesos (one US dollars equals 43+ Philippine pesos) each on the house and .5 million each on the contents. Their sales agent was always the same person handling everything for me and my wife, as regards the coverage and as regards the premiums to pay. My wife and I always left everything to him, always with the same instructions to get us the best protection, because we did not know as much as we should about the technical and legal minutiae of the theory and practice of home insurance. On filing the claim, the insurance company sent it to their local "independent adjusters" firm of Pacific International Adjusters to determine the liability of the company. The independent adjusters calculated 610,333.80 pesos as the grand total payable by Oriental for both homes together, that means the two houses and the contents of these two houses. I consider the amount to be very unrealistic, too very low; but I can't do anything because I don't know anything about insurance loss adjustment. I read legal texts in the internet and learned that the Insurance Code of the Philippines also provides for "public adjusters" to help claimants, so that independent adjusters who are assisting insurance companies will not take advantage of claimants. But the sad fact is that there are no public adjusters in the country (except for two but they are into marine insurance claims), because -- and I blame the Insurance Commission -- this government office never had any imagination on how to bring applicants for adjusters to take up public adjusters work, for left to themselves all applicants want to be licensed to work as independent adjusters, or more probably they the people inside effectively don't even know the provision of the Insurance Code on "private adjusters." Question #1: Should I bring the topmost level of the Insurance Commission to the Office of the Ombudsman to explain why they have not made available to the insuring citizenry the availability of public adjusters? Question #2: Should I file a complaint with the same Insurance Commission against the Pacific independent adjusters on the provision of the Insurance Code of the Philippines: -------------------- Title V, Sec. 330. The Commissioner may suspend or revoke any adjuster's license if, after giving notice and hearing to the adjuster concerned, the Commissioner finds that the said adjuster: [...] (5) has made patently unjust valuation of loss; [...] ----------------------- Question #3: To date I have not accepted the payment arrived at by the Pacific independent adjusters, what can and must I do in order to get Oriental and their adjusters to increase the payment to me to as much as 3 millions for all the losses, because that is what some people experienced and knowledgeable about home insurance claims adjustment are telling me. ----------------------- So, where in the internet can I get free instructions on the theory and practice of insurance loss adjustment, in order that I can point out to the independent adjusters concerned how they have made a mockery of the noble profession and practice of insurance loss adjustment. Please help anyone! Specially public insurance loss adjusters who know about the abuses independent adjusters are regularly tempted to resort to, to run circles around insurance loss claimants. And God bless you for all and any goodness you show here.