His name is Mr. Paul James, National Awareness Coordinator for the Mesothelioma Center.

Author: Mr. Paul James (click on the image of the house to enlarge it)
Owning a home is regarded as one of the great moments of your life. It is a time that will bring many joyous memories for you and your family, but is also one that can create additional responsibilities.

With many older buildings, there is the potential for hazardous materials that may be present.

Newly bought homes are often remodeled and repairs are always needed. This is often the case with older homes, which still run with old, corrosive methods that were once used to build structures.

If you believe that your home contains asbestos, a home inspection could be extremely important for safety, health and investment reasons.

Jun understands the many risks and responsibilities involved in the home buying process.

Real estate experts should make sure that potential home buyers receive all the information they need before the latter make the most important step – buying.

Asbestos

Asbestos is a fibrous mineral that gained popularity throughout the 20th century. Its qualities as flame and heat resistant made it perfect for use in construction and building applications. Asbestos that is disturbed or damaged due to age is known as “friable” asbestos. This is a serious concern because its toxic fibers can easily circulate and become inhaled.

Homes and buildings constructed prior to 1980 still hold the potential of containing asbestos materials. In most situations, asbestos appears in

• roof shingles
• dry wall
• attic insulation
• popcorn ceilings
• joint compounds and
• electrical wires.

It is not always an easy process to determine whether or not a particular insulation contains asbestos. Anyone who is unsure about the insulation in their home should have the materials in question inspected and tested.

If exposed to airborne asbestos fibers for a prolonged period of time, it can lead to the development of related lung ailments such as asbestosis and mesothelioma.

Treatment has varied effects on victims. The age of diagnosis and latency period typically have a direct impact on patients.

Healthy Tips

If asbestos materials are present, most contractors will advise home owners to leave it alone. A home inspector can determine the toxicity levels present. Sometimes the best action is no action at all.

A general contractor will usually be responsible for providing materials, equipment and labor for a remodeling project. Consultants will identify material defects in structures and components of the home, in adherence to or exceeding national or local building codes and industry regulations and standards.

Asbestos insulation should be left undisturbed in your attic. Limit the amount of accessories and items stored. Do not allow children’s access. If you plan to remodel or conduct renovations, hire professionals to handle asbestos to safely remove the material. Removing asbestos by yourself can potentially spread fibers throughout your home and your family will be at risk of inhaling asbestos dust.

If an inspector deems the substance harmful, the removal of asbestos in public facilities, workplaces and homes must be performed by licensed abatement contractors who are trained in handling toxic substances. Depending on the condition of the asbestos, many experts feel it is better to seal it off than remove it.

Environment and human-friendly alternatives to asbestos

Green insulation alternatives to asbestos include the use of cotton fiber, lcynene foam and cellulose.

Cotton fiber is quickly becoming a favorite for home builders and renovators. Cotton fiber is also becoming a favorite insulation method. Made from recycled batted material, it is then treated to be fireproof. Water-based spray polyurethane foam, lcynene, is a healthy insulation material which contains no toxic components.

Research has demonstrated that eco-friendly methods of building and insulation can result in decreased annual energy costs by 25%, along with an environmentally sustainable home, free of health damaging materials.

__________________________

Thanks a lot, Paul; that was a great post!

If you have any comment, question or suggestion, you may post them below in the comment section.

You may contact Paul via paul@asbestos.com

You may also contact Mr. Joe Lederman via joe@asbestos.com

Invite us to be your friends in Facebook: junsanchez08@gmail.com. Ask them theirs : )

And, please, visit their website here for the most up-to-date information on the harmful effects of asbestos.

P.S. You might have noticed that my website is almost advertisement-free. I will remove the HostGator banners soon. I am putting my plan to apply for Google AdSense on hold, indefinitely. I’m thinking of not monetizing this site.

I am doing so because I am not after the quantity of my readers. I am not interested in hits or in traffic. I am contemplating on making this website a private one and available only to my Facebook friends.

Thanks a lot

You will only appreciate this article if you read my three previous posts – Perfect type of housing, parts 1 and 2 and News that will impact on Philippine real estate. I strongly urge you to read them first before moving on.

This place has impressed me so much that my family will definitely relocate to this place within the next two to three years.

Most important rule when buying real estate

Think MACRO

The digital photography industry has misused this term; it uses the term macro mode to mean close-up view of an image. In Economics it’s the opposite, macro means taking a very long, wide and far perspective. Other economists describe macro as taking a “top-down” view of things, i.e., you look at something, in our case real estate, as if you are riding in a helicopter.

Most say that the three most important things to remember when buying real estate are “location, location and location.” But how can you choose the best location if you don’t think macro?

You have to take a TOP-DOWN view: You have to remember that when buying real estate in the Philippines, you’re not just buying, say, a 300 square meter lot. You’re buying into the:

Region

Province

City or Municipality

Barangay and

Neighborhood

of that 300 square meter lot.

Make the wrong choice in one of them and you will be disappointed with your acquisition.

So, fasten your seat belts as I take you on a ride to see where the best real estates are in the Philippines.

They are in Santa Rosa, Laguna

Originally named Barrio Bukol when discovered by the Spanish Conquistador Juan de Salcedo in 1571, Sta. Rosa is now a premier city that is part of CALABARZON or Region IV-A.

It has a land area of 54.1 square kilometers and is divided into 18 barangays with a population of 266,943 per NSO’s latest survey.

If you want to read a brief history of Sta. Rosa, its demographics and its rapid industrialization, click here. It was reprinted (with permission) from a book edited by former Finance Undersecretary, Hon. Juanita Amatong, who’s now with the Bangko Sentral. You won’t find these facts anywhere in the internet.

I posted a teaser for this entry on Aug 19. Oddly, two days later, this came out in the Inquirer.net. (Check the date just below the title of this post. It is only today, September 18, that I published this.)

Salient parts of that report are:

… When the 387-hectare Laguna Technopark, the country’s first industrial estate opened here in 1980, Sta. Rosa was deemed as the “gateway” to the Calabarzon Region…

… our income reached P1.2 billion last year. These came mostly from the business and realty taxes paid…

… Sta. Rosa is regarded as the Philippines’ motor city housing 4 of the country’s major car manufacturing companies… that account for 90 percent of the total car manufacturing output of the country.

What the report didn’t say is that the remaining 10 % of the car output are produced by Isuzu in Binan, just spitting distance from Sta. Rosa, in the same industrial park where the other car manufacturers operate : )

Sta. Rosa has been dubbed in so many ways:

• Motor City ala Detroit, Michigan
• Wikipedia calls it the Investment Capital of South Luzon
• Gateway to CALABARZON
• Just last year, it was voted the Number One Next Wave City in ICT by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology and by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (or BPAP).
• Mr. Lucio Tan’s company calls it the Silicon Valley of the Philippines where some fifty semiconductor manufacturers operate.

But my favorite is: Santa Rosa – the Next Makati Central Business District.

My tip when buying real estate: Think as the tycoons do; invest where they do.

The most successful people in real estate are all VISIONARIES; they see things that we ordinary people don’t. They look decades ahead and behind; they are astute students of history, i.e., they never forget their mistakes and they learn from their own mistakes and from those of others. When we see mountains, they see anthills… they all think MACRO, and they all ride in helicopters. (To save on gas, I use Google Earth and Wikimapia instead.)

Today, billions have been and are still being invested in Sta Rosa (and in its periphery) by the who’s who in Philippine real estate: the Ayalas, the Sta. Rosa pioneer whose current flagship project is Nuvali, Mr. Lucio Tan of Eton Properties Philippines, Inc., the Gotianuns of Filinvest, the Ng’s of Cathay Land, Inc., the Quiros family and Britanny Corp., the Yulos who have partnered with the Ayalas to develop Nuvali, the Campos of Greenfield Development Corporation and so many more.

So, what do they see in Sta. Rosa that we don’t?

Two faces of Sta. Rosa

Below is the map of Sta. Rosa City, its 18 barangays, their population and its major thoroughfares.

Do take note of the soon-to-be rehabilitated PNR double-tracked railways. (that’s why you should read my previous post, “News that will impact on Philippine real estate”)

I consider Sta. Rosa as having two faces: the Old Sta. Rosa and the New

From the north, after taking the Sta. Rosa exit, you will face a dead end. You either turn left towards what I call the Old and quaint Sta. Rosa or turn right to the New and cosmopolitan one, along the Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay Road (let’s call this SRT Rd.), the corridor to Tagaytay.

In the mid 1990’s, SRT Rd. extended only up to Laguna Blvd. Beyond was a dense woodland and there was no access to Tagaytay. Sta. Rosa, then, was mainly known for the two Coca-Cola plants (the biggest outside the United States), Toyota, CIGI and the now troubled Filsyn.

Fast forward to the present

Sta. Rosa has so much to offer in terms of real estate opportunities; I cannot discuss them all in this entry; I will have to divide this topic into several parts.

NEW STA. ROSA

As mentioned, Sta. Rosa was discovered by the Spaniards in the 1500’s. But the New Sta. Rosa emerged only in the 1980’s when Laguna Technopark was established. It’s a joint-venture among Ayala Land, Inc., Mitsubishi Corporation and Kawasaki Steel Corporation. The New Sta. Rosa was master planned by the local government, and to a large extent, by the Ayalas.

How well-planned is the New Sta. Rosa?

The most important principle in my second post is:

“Inherent geographic characteristics, scarcity and cost of land, population density and availability of commercial establishments, varied job opportunities and conveniences determine the suitable type of housing in a given area.”

Job opportunities in Sta. Rosa

Below is the map of the New Sta. Rosa indicating its Economic Zones (in blue texts)

I only indicated the most relevant companies in these Ecozones. Kindly use Wikimapia or Google Maps to see other companies operating there. There are hundreds of them in these ecozones that include some of the most reputable in the world. And so many are ISO-accredited.

You will not run out of jobs in Sta. Rosa.

But what if,… just what if, you can’t find a job in Sta. Rosa?

You can try the other ecozones in Laguna; it currently has seventeen and many are just stones-throw away from Sta. Rosa. Excluding the ones in this city, these are:

• Carmelray Industrial Park I; Calamba; 46 has.
• Carmelray Industrial Park II; Calamba; 145 has.
• Filinvest Special Zone; Calamba; 250 has.
• Laguna International Industrial Park; Binan; 32 has.
• Light Industry and Science Park I; Cabuyao; 67 has.
• Light Industry and Science Park II; Calamba; 64 has.
• LIIP Calamba Industrial Community/Calamba Premiere; Calamba; 66 has.
• Prince Cabuyao Special Economic Zone; Cabuyao; 26 has.
• Silangan Industrial Park; Calamba; 197 has.
• Southwoods Ecocentrum Tourism Estate; Binan; 71 has.
• Terelay Industrial Park; Cabuyao-Calamba
• White Lily Industrial Park I; Calamba; 145 has

For call center agents, there are at least two BPO’s operating in Sta. Rosa, Convergys and KGB (24 are nearby in Muntinlupa and 10 are in other places in Laguna).

According to Mr. Jaime I. Ayala, President and CEO of Ayala Land, Inc., a number of BPO’s have already bought into their Evozone in Nuvali.

Listen very intently on what Mr. Ayala says in the first video below and pay very close attention especially on that part where a “security guard” is biking.

The office buildings in Evozone Nuvali are called “office campuses,” the current buzz word in modern office design that first became vogue in the real Silicon Valley. Microsoft has them in its Redmond, Washington “campus,” so does Google in Mountain View, California.

(I’m getting ahead of myself, but this is something I have to discuss now). These office campuses in Nuvali will be built according to the LEED standard. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The buildings (actually, the entire Nuvali) are designed to encourage people to move around using means that do not require non-renewable energy. Of course, there will be facilities like elevators, escalators and artificial lighting that require energy but they will be balanced with those that do not.

The office buildings in Nuvali will have “bicycle ramps inside,” i.e., you can ride your bicycle from your house (there will be dedicated bike lanes across the entire Nuvali and they will cut through developments (wala pong putol; tuloy-tuloy!) to your office then continue biking your way “into” the building “up until” you reach, say, the fourth floor where your office is. (you’ll see these bike ramps in the video). You can reach your office cubicle without riding a bus, without using the elevator and do the same when going home.

Isn’t that fantastic?! That’s the finest example of what Green Living and Working is all about.

Now is your chance to invest in properties that will become… “tomorrow’s” Forbes Park, Urdaneta or San Lorenzo at… “today’s” prices!!!

For foreigners who follow this blog, the three property developments mentioned above are the Gold Standard in Philippine real estate; the equivalent of Redwood Shores in Redwood City, California, the SW3 between Chelsea and Brompton in England, or The Palm in Dubai.

To see an example in the US of what an office campus is and its concept, click here.

Below are videos of the 2 real estate giants whose projects in Sta. Rosa are vying to become the Next Makati Central Business District. In my opinion, there is no conflict in their projects. I think they will even complement each other and, together, they will turn this city into the next Makati CBD sooner than expected.

Do watch out for more; I have barely scratched the surface.

Rest assured that Sta. Rosa has something for you regardless of your economic stature.

Thanks a lot

images of Sta. Rosa seal and location map by Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Acknowledgment:

This article would not have been made possible without the generosity of the City Government of Sta. Rosa particularly the Hon. Nelly C. Gomez, the City Assessor and the wonderful people in her department under the “Geographic Information Center” -  Messrs. Alfie Tamayo, Jerico Layosa, Rey Arnobit and Arnold Rico. They’re the ones who provided me the maps using their cutting-edge Geographic Information System (it’s Sta. Rosa’s giant version of Pinoy Big Brother : )

I’m also grateful to Mr. Aries Zapanta, City Public Information Officer who was my first contact in the City Government.

Thank you so much also to the Hon. Juanita Amatong who gave me permission to reprint part of the book she edited – Local Government Fiscal and Financial Management: Best Practices.

Thank you also to Engr. Gilbert Patulot, Area Division Manager under the Engineering Department of the Philippine National Railways and to Mr. Wilfredo Llabitan for the invaluable information they gave me.

Last but not the least, thanks to my buddy, Mr. Andy Adan aka Mr. Blue aka Andy329 for his patience in teaching me Photoshop and Corel Draw.

Disclaimer:

The satellite maps given me by the City of Sta. Rosa are accurate, reliable and up-to-date. It’s the way I edited them that may not be accurate. So, please don’t use them for navigation purposes nor for choosing real estate in Sta. Rosa. Kindly conduct your own due diligence.

When you plan on owning a home, you have three choices: a single-detached house, a duplex/quadruplex/townhouse or a condominium unit.

It’s crucial, especially for a first-time home buyer, to make the right choice for it can spell the difference between having the house of your dreams and having the house that you will hate or worse, wasting your money on a home that will never be finished.

Basic pros and cons of each type of housing

Each type of housing possesses advantages and disadvantages that are uniquely its own.

A single house offers advantages that cannot be offered by a condominium or a townhouse and vice versa. Think of space, privacy and peace and quiet when living in a single house. Its major disadvantage is scarcity and high cost of land make buying or building a single house in urbanized areas prohibitive. For most of us, opting for a single house means moving far into the suburbs or even to the provinces where land is relatively inexpensive.

On the other hand, with a condominium unit, think about the time saved and the convenience of walking or just taking a short commute to work or to school; of taking a short trip in an elevator and taking just several steps to withdraw cash from an ATM machine or grabbing snack in a nearby convenience store in the wee hours. Its disadvantages? Think about sharing common areas and facilities with hundreds of families or individuals; (pardon me, I can’t help but think about AH1N1 virus); about paying another half a million pesos for a single car slot and paying monthly dues based on the size of your unit plus the size of your car slot.

For townhouses, it’s the middle ground between the two. It shares all the advantages and disadvantages of both a single house and a condominium unit but to a lesser extent. You gain relatively more space and privacy than when living in a condo, but less of them than if you own a single house. Since a townhouse enables a developer to optimize the cost of land to a certain degree, many can still be had in areas not too far from commercial hubs.

There is no truth to the title of this article - there is no perfect type of housing, there’s only a right choice.

Base your choice on what you value most

More than a roof over your head, a home should provide benefits that will enhance your lifestyle. When deciding on what type of home to own, first determine the things that you value most – is it time, convenience, space, privacy or peace and quiet? Since all these benefits cannot be practically provided by any one type of housing, making a compromise is inevitable. Give up a few advantages to get the most important ones.

Make a wish list and a reality list

A very valuable book I found, 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask by Ilyce R. Glink suggests that you make a wish list and a reality list.

In my opinion, a wish list is no longer necessary if you believe what has been emphasized – that for most of us, there is no perfect type of home that will provide all the benefits that we want; we can’t have them all.

Start with a reality list which, according to the book and with a few input of my own, may include the following questions:

• How close to work do you need to be?
• Do you use public transportation on a daily basis?
• Does driving on an expressway or in traffic make you crazy? How much time are you willing to drive to work each day?
• How many children do you have or are planning to have?
• How many bedrooms do you need?
• Is a garage absolutely necessary?
• How often do you go to the city, suburbs or province? Where would you rather be?
• Will your little kids have to walk to school, commute, or will you have to drive them? When they grow up, where will they study?
• How far away from your church should you be?
• Do you need a garden?
• What is your favorite recreation and how far away from it should you be?
• With a family of your own, where do your parents, siblings and other relatives live? Where do your friends live? How often do you want to visit or to be visited by them?

These are just a few; the longer your list, the clearer you will be with which home that best suits you.

After you have made a list, rank them according to their importance and use it to evaluate the pros and cons of each type of housing… then choose.

If you are interested on the research I made – “Study on the Philippine Construction Industry” – from which I based my Inquirer article, kindly click here. It’s in PDF format.

Thanks a lot

image courtesy of xymanou