I’ve been asked by so many people by email on the cost of building a simple house here in the Philippines. Sometimes the budget that they can afford is just low for a very nice house. So an idea came to mind for me again while I was looking at my old photos. I came across the house (cottage) built by a friend in Samal.
Like most of the email, they say they already bought a small lot for them to build a simple house. So the house I was talking about it can be 2 bedroom and one bathroom in the loft. The downstairs with living room you can have sofa-bed or have a nice futon bed if you have company. The house also includes with kitchen and dining room and one bathroom downstairs. With nice front porch. The walls are all brick. The roof has tin roof and the owner puts a nipa material (like straw hat materials) or a cogon (blady grass, kunai grass, or Japanese blood grass) on top the tin roof to make to look like a native house. It’s a very nice house and the cost was reasonable. The cost of that house when we inquired with the the owner he said he had it done with roughly half a million pesos. When we talked to him that was over 7 years ago though.
So to date, the house that I am describing might cost a million or a little bit more now. But honestly it’s still reasonable with the nice brick and the good structure, for me it’s worth it. I saw just recently a friend built a house in Sarangani area with similar size and he built it for 1 million, it’s not brick but with a gorgeous view, I think it’s worth it. I liked both houses but I prefer the one in Samal the brick and the loft attracted me the most.
The thing what makes the house so attractive inside were the nice crown moldings and woodwork. They even used bamboo for some of the moldings and the woodwork. It’s really nice. Both houses, the owners decorated it with native furnishings and native accessories. I’m not really an Adirondack furniture kinda girl but they had it there and I liked it a lot. The side tables were made of bamboo too. The rails of the one in Samal I think he uses bamboo for the rails in the deck. He also uses if I remember in the ceiling lining were woven bamboo ply panels or the crushed bamboo. I’m trying to remember the place my friends, we were there ages ago already. LOL
I went to a friend’s house and they had bamboo stick for a a wainscoting and a bigger piece of bamboo as the border. It looks good. Really I think partly to make the cost lesser for building a house here, would be by trying using the local and native materials. Ask your carpenters to treat any woods before using it. My carpenter uses woods too when I had something built here in the house, but he always buys something to treat the wood first. It worked for us.
Good luck and have fun building your vacation house or your dream house!!!
This may be a very doable option for us Bob & Feyma, thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much James… Are you thinking of building a house similar like this?
Good luck to you. Have a great day!
how many sqm is the house/lot?
I found this article very helpful. A million of anything sounds very expensive, but when you do the conversion it’s not so scary.
Hi Byron – Thank you. Yep, it does sounds expensive when you saw the “million” word co’z you’re thinking in dollars. Lol
Thank you so much for stopping by!
Good plan, but please everyone, be aware, the “budget” your wife quotes you is about 1/4th the actual cost you will incur before you ever think about sleeping there. Multiply what she tells you by 4 (or more) and withhold the balance for when you need to pay it, lest your money is **GONE**. Budget accordingly and be happy, or loose it all if you don’t. (Hint: construction materials deteriorate if not properly used and fast!) Don’t believe me, watch the walls of your half-funded half-built “house” fall down a few months after you started. Learn to spell “ulan” for your next expensive try, if you have money to try *again*.
Presuming you already have the property, about 1/4million peso strict construction budget and good local connections might get you close in 2015. It won’t be a nipa-mansion for that money, don’t expect like in the pic, but you can have an acceptable “house” if you are very VERY careful each moment.
Hi Ed – I think the best thing that both couple will achieve the budget, try to stick with it. Talk with your builders what materials you want and how long do you think they get the job done.
Honestly I showed that pictures to my carpenter and he told me the price that was told to us by the owner at that time was about right he said. Communicate well with your builder and tell them what you want and what you don’t want. My carpenter knows us already. The thing that attracted me the most with the house on top was the brick and the way it was lay out inside.
Communication is the key from the couple to the builder. Miscommunication will lead to disaster.
If your building good luck to you!
around 23 k u s
That’s great, James Everhart! I have been in this house too, and it is quite nice!
That’s so true, Byron Watts!
Spot on, Anthony Bosetti!
similar to what my wife, Roselyn, and I have in mind.:) … except we thought about elevating it a little.
Hi Don – Sounds like a good plan to me.
Good luck. Have fun!
That is a good plan, Don Rua Sr.
Thanks Feyma, I really like the idea of this nipa hut. I want to build something affordable in my home province so my family can have a place to stay for vacations and short visits on holidays. I would like to bookmark this.
Hi Lou – Thanks. I think in the province if you’re family is the builder it will be cheaper then. You can even just use concrete much cheaper instead of the brick. But let me tell you though, the brick really is attractive. 🙂
Feel free to email us later the pictures of your house when you’re done building. Good luck to you!
I don’t know how costly bricks are in the Philippines, am sure it is not cheap. Poured concrete and use of other native materials are cheaper alternatives. I would like to use bamboo and nipa as those materials are more adaptable to our warm climate and beautiful too.
My friend who just moved back in Iloilo said construction costs are high. She’s building an American style house though. I just want a nipa hut for a vacation home, nothing fancy, just functional.
I wish you have more pictures of the interior. Thanks Feyma.
I’m not sure if the numbers are right or not, but a friend of mine who lives there said he had this nipa hut built as a guest home for only about $1000! I was hoping to be able to build ours for around P 500k, if possible. A/C is not necessary, but a western CR is.
I had initially missed the “k” character, improperly reading 500pesos which wouldn’t even delimit and level the perimeter of any dream-bahay.
Ahhhh! that all important “k” (to multiply by thousands)!
Yes, presuming you already have the property and know what you’re doing with the right connections, 1/2 million for construction materials and labor will do itwith marginally to spare for surprises. My wife hopes to complete something modest ‘sa bukid’ for almost 500k (way over her initial budget) amount. Yes with CR but no-way aircon, it’s cold enough up there at night.
Hi Don – For sure on the quality of materials being used on that house that I showed you on top, you can’t build on just $1000 alone. The brick alone he paid more than that. Sorry, it just not going to work that cheaply. Not sure if it will that cheap to use bamboo materials all through out the house. No bricks and concrete.
Good quality to build it will cost more.
Good luck you!
I think that 500k is going to be very tight.
I’m actually budgeting $50k for a nice piece of beach property and a home. I think I can do both with that number, hopefully.
Presuming your $50k is USD, then yes, if you’re very prudent and very patient you might achieve your goal for PHP2million and-a-bit. Please excruciatingly beware of the caveats. 🙂
I wish you the best of luck on that, Don Rua Sr., it just depends on where you are looking. In some areas you can’t touch a piece of beach property with that budget, not even including the house.. but in other areas you can do it.
tnx … in the area that I am looking another American (and his wife) recently bought the #1 beach spot there … a beautiful white sand beach with a clear spring feeding into the ocean, with about six cottages on it for only $20 USD! … or 1 mil pesos. I am looking for a smaller less popular piece nearby.
That place in the picture on Facebook looks very nice. I was wondering where it is located.
It is located in Samal Island.
Thank you, nice place
$20 dollars? You mean $20,000, right?
right … my bad. The owners were asking 2 mil, but he was able to talk them down to 1 mil. I was stunned! It is a gorgeous beach! The most popular in the area. … I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can find something smaller, but nice for half of that. 🙂
don’t forget when converting u.s dollar to philippine peso to use current peso rate to get a accurate amount
USDPHP is relatively stable.
Many other “anchor” currencies are recently at 10-year lows, suddenly down 30%.
Head the poster’s advice especially if non US$ !!!!!
Lest you wake up in the morning to discover that you don’t have enough cash to buy baby-milk. Volatile times, way beyond what we’re used to this last couple of decades. Expect exacerbated volatility to come.
any photos of inside of this kind of house
Hi Anthony – I used to have them in my previous computer. I forgot to save in my back up. When my pc died everything went with it too. I was so upset too many photos there that I lost.
Sorry I did not go back there again. Something for me to think about when I go to Samal again.
Thank you so much for stopping by!
I plan on building a small 1000 Sq ft. house but hollow blocks and concrete because of the termites and storms. What people need to understand is the highly skilled(old school) labor men in the Philippines have. These guys can take a 4×8 piece of plywood and waste only the saw dust. A 2 bedroom, 1 CR, outside kitchen etc in the 20 to 24K figure. Depending on many factors of course.
Hi Fred – Good plan and good idea. Concrete is really a must here when building a house.
**** These guys can take a 4×8 piece of plywood and waste only the saw dust. * ——- Absolutely true. So agree with you on that. 🙂
Good luck to you!
Also as Bob Martin will tell you,, you can not buy land here, so be careful who you trust. Get paper work, this good old boy stuff can back fire on you. Title of property is a must,, Well my suggestion.
Hi Fred – A very useful information for our readers here.
Thanks for the reminder!
Nipa and bamboo are beautiful. So nice and cool. But very frightning during a typhoon and a very big fire risk.
Hi corjo – Try to have a good concrete foundation, it might work in the typhoon area. Luckily for us here in this part of the country, we don’t have typhoon. Thank God for that.
Good to see you here. Have a pleasant day!
Don Roa Sr., yes you’re right house like that in tropical area not necessary to have an AC .electric fan is more than enough/
Hi Garcia Ben – It might be best to put AC too just in-case it’s needed. That’s what I do. Just my opinion though.
Nice to see you here!
Ohhh.. Very nice
Hi Erilyn – Thank you!
like the house! Another advantage of grass over tin is grass helps to keep it much cooler inside.
Hi Larry – True.Thank you for stopping by!
Should I hire a lawyer before I buy the house?
Hi Scott – If you don’t know anything, that might be a good thing for you to do.
Good luck!
I thought this discussion was about *building* a house. Building a house on land you already “own” (ok, which your wife owns) is way different than “buying a house”, lest you discover that you indeed bought a “house” now you go ahead and MOVE it to some property you actually have somewhere else. Hence the common Phils term “house _and_ lot”, where that may actually be true.
Corollary, when my wife bought a “bahay cubo”, that’s exactly what she bought no more no less. The land it was sitting on was NOT included nor did we expect any more. The cubo was delivered here and now sits beside our house. Ok, that was pretty clear, but when considering private real-property … let’s put it this way, whatever country you hail from, would you hire a lawyer *there* to protect you in real-estate transactions? Hint. 🙂
Scott, unless buying from a recognized reputable developer which would involve attorneys and proper documentation (apparently not the case in your question), a modest investment in good legal opinion and title research might be prudent. In most places there’s no such thing as what most of us perceive to be a jurisdictional land-title-registry. Are you buying “clear title” and will you (your wife) obtain such? Are you buying “stewardship” rights? Something else? Nothing? Something the purported “seller” doesn’t even own?
A Barangay “deed of sale” document is nice, but when it comes to millions in property with questionable rights, what will you do years later fighting long after the “seller” disappeared with your cash?
What’s that old adage? “Buyer beware”
What do Pinoys tell you? “Don’t trust!”
that is also my dream house.
Time to build now then Violet. Lol
Scott- you should hire a surveyor to make sure you are buying what you think you are and have a lawyer. Feyma, what do they call surveyors in the Philippines?
Hi Bill – Same name here in the Philippines too “surveyors”.
Always good to see you here!
we actually have 2 houses under construction in the Philippines now. One of the houses is a “Modern-Nipa’ House. Its only 70 sq meters, and its 500k pesos. For me its actually expensive for a native Phil House.
Hi Maimai – Thank you for the comment.
*** One of the houses is a “Modern-Nipa’ House. Its only 70 sq meters, and its 500k pesos. For me its actually expensive for a native Phil House. *** ————– Are you using just the native materials? For me if you’re using bricks and good woodwork throughout the house. Half a million is cheap already.
Thank you for stopping by!
Nice article and nice “day dreams” of so many of us in comments! I think I get back to my bed…dreaming! 🙂
Hi Leo – Thank you so much… Hey, have a great dream. Don’t drool. Lol… 🙂
I built a nipa roof cottage 30 years ago with a steel skeleton for 180K PHP. It is still standing today and I get guests from AirBnB.
See pictures at http://www.orchidpark.net/gallery/index.php?gallery=cottage
Now I am looking to build a tree house. It will be a bit of a challenge and cost more, but it will be breezy and very attractive.
Yes, I planted that three (a flowering arbor or flamboyant) 30 years ago , so it’s just the right hight now.
Hi joop – Your house really looks good too. It stands the test of time. How many bad weather already pass by Cebu, I think too many already. So I guess the Half a million is good price now. Just looking at your house it’s smaller than the house on top that I was posting about.
Hope your house will still stay 30 more years for you. Good luck!
What city or province for that cost
Cagayan de oro/Bukidnon
Thanks
(y)
no worries…:-)
Hello Feyma, The house looks gorgeous and the nipa keeps the roof and house temperature cool.My greatest fear is that nipa is highly combustible in nature . It catches fire and burns very easily. Dali ra ma ugdaw. ( Hope I spelled that right.) Anyway, I will be retiring to the Phil. as soon as my home here in the US sells.It is currently listed for sale .Eventually , I will build a home in the Phil. when I get settled. Looking to build something modest but comfortable to live in.Thanks for sharing that
Hi Julius – Yep it is. I don’t think it will catches fire that easy if you have the concrete or the brick for the foundation and walls all through. Like I said, that structure has a tin roof underneath the cogon. For one don’t burn anything near the structure too. I’ve seen too many houses made of native materials here in the Philippines. Not much houses burn down. I guess, people here just knows how or just an instincts for them, that they had to be careful near to those kind of structures.
Good luck on your building. Have a great day!
I love the look of that house. We’ve been thinking about what kind of house to build there when we move there. I like the look of Nipa but have heard lots about termite problems as well as the maintenance, not to mention typhoons. It’s nice to read about other peoples experiences.
With all due respect, please consider that any typhoon that will damage a good nipa-house will also glow away a metal roof.
If you eschew the damage typhoons will inflict upon you, be somewhere *else*.
As for “anay”, they mostly like real wood, coco lumber and pine. At least that’s the evidence on the few square-meters I’ve paid for and have ostensibly temporarily “owned” here in the Phils. Always willing to learn from and share with others here.
Hi Maria – Like what I said on top, make the structures concrete. Talk to your builder to have the native/wood materials be treated before using. Luckily the place that house stands is in the typhoon safe zone.
Good luck to you!
Feyma,
I dig that house ! Really cool. Perfect for any surfer 🙂
Hi bobbyaguho – Thanks. Samal might be a good place to surf too. Have to ask some friends here that I know.
Hope you visit Samal or Sarangani Province to surf. Good to see you here!
Feyma;
I wrote awhile back an article about building in the tropics, allow me to repeat myself. After living in Florida, Puerto Rico Costa Rica and the Philippines I noticed that a flat cement slab roofs were always still there when the storm has passed. A tad more expensive to build but factoring in roof repairs after every storm it really is worth it. Oh, it also leaves you a nice year round patio.
Hi Paul – A very good and useful advice to our readers here. So agree with you.
Thank you so much Paul. Have a great day!
Im going to build one too bob…….maybe near Subic Bay…I will retire in the Pinas…..
Hi JJ – Good luck to you. Nice to see you here!
Hi Feyma,
Information provided here is most useful. I intend building a Nipa house between Calape and Talibon but am finding it quite difficult to source a builder for this area.
Family members are able to assist but lack building knowledge.
Are you or any of your readers able to help me please.
Regards
Daniel
Hi. I love the design. Do you happen to have pictures of the nipa house inside? Or from other outside angles of the house? I’ve been checkin lately pictures of modern nipa houses. I’d like to build one here in the philippines. If it is not so much to ask, you may email me the pictures at [email protected].
Thanks much!
Hi,
I am planning to build a resthouse in siquijor aside of having permanent residential house in dumaguete. Siquijor is only 35 min by fastcraft. I stumble in your blog since searching for affordable resthouse building cost. What is your opinion of a 80 sq.m floor plan with one bedroom on the ground and a wide open loft (big guestroom for multiple guests) upstairs. Do you think PHP500k is enough. Concrete walls and nipa roof and some wood interiors?