Le sigh

The apartment situation has been a little crazy these past few days.

Through Housing Agent #1, we made an offer for the place on Beethovenstraat which was lower than the owner's asking price. After two days, the owner's agent told us they had knocked €50 off the asking price—and I was like, what the heck kind of tawad is €50? Still, we kicked our budget up a notch (the house is that nice), made a counter-offer, and waited.

And waited.

In the meantime, we viewed another apartment with Housing Agent #2 (a.k.a. The Blond Clive Owen). A ground-floor apartment near the Concertgebouw and Museumplein, it promised to be a contender, but turned out to be too big of an investment on our part—we'd have to spend for closets, curtains, a dryer, lighting fixtures and to clean up the garden. So much for that.

And still, we waited.

Marlon and I also decided on a back-up apartment should Beethovenstraat reject our offer. I haven't blogged about it since the pictures I took were crappy. But we saw it on our very first day of house-hunting, and it was the pick of that day. We just needed to get the final word from Beethovenstraat so we could make an offer on this other place before it got snapped up by someone else.

But still, we waited. And started to wonder why the owners were taking so long to evaluate our counter-offer.

Today Housing Agent #1 found out that the owner's agent was in talks with another prospective tenant about the same apartment! Instead of holding one-to-one negotiations with the first to make an offer, he had been playing us off each other without either of us knowing. After getting an offer from us, he would tell the owner, then run to the other party and get a counter offer, then make the owner decide.

This whole runaround not only prolonged the entire process, but drove up the rent (and the agent's commission)... in favor of the other "bidder". Marlon and I weren't expecting a bidding game, and we're certainly not funded to play one. Welcome to Expatland, where there will always be someone with a bigger relocation package/housing allowance/tax benefit than you.

So we gave up the bidding war to the other party, and for the second time in as many weeks, I'm crushed.

We now have a pending offer for the third choice on our list. I can only hope it's still on the market—we lost so time on this stupid waiting game—and that the negotiations are not as draining. We're only in the serviced apartment until Wednesday, so we have to close a deal on an apartment asap. Like tomorrow.

Let's try this again

After hearts are broken, life must go on. (Chos! Emo!) So, in the interest of moving on, Marlon and I have instructed our housing agent to make an offer on another flat. It's on Beethovenstraat, in what the housing agent and relocation consultants keep saying is the one of the poshest areas in Amsterdam. 

I don't know if this fact is stated over and over again because it's meant to be a huge selling point; it's all the same to me. It's not like fitting into the social hierarchy is on my agenda here. What I care about more is that right across the street are a tram stop, Albert Heijn supermarket, fishmonger, bakerij and butcher! No more carting heavy bags over a 15-minute walk in the cold!

Ayan, na-excite na naman ako. Be still, my heart. After my recent real estate heartbreak, I don't want to really get my hopes up. But I thought I'd share the place with everyone anyway so you can root for us!

It's on the first floor, so just one flight of moderately manageable steps, thank goodness. The front door opens into a small hallway that leads to all the rooms. I now have to think of things like where to hang the coats, and whether there's space for a coat rack or just wall-mounted hooks.

I like the wooden floors and the decent-sized living/dining space facing the street. The decommissioned brick fireplace in the corner is a nice old detail in an otherwise modern space.

The all-important second bedroom also faces Beethovenstraat. Because it's a busy street, the owners have all but hermetically sealed this room off. To compensate for the lack of circulation, they've also added a contraption that lets in fresh air while filtering out the noise from the street. It's the small rectangular box on top of the radiator.

I also like the checkerboard floor in the bathroom, and the fact that the place comes with its own washer and dryer (less for us to spend on!). It doesn't have a bathtub though, which I initially thought was not such a big minus. Huwag maging choosy ang lumaki sa tabo at balde, lol. But I did a long, delectably hot soak in the serviced apartment bathtub the other day, and I must admit having one would be a wonderful luxury.

Still, I can't complain. The his-and-hers sinks are a major step up from our tiny bathroom in Singapore.

The master bedroom is airy and spacious. The closet is a huge plus, since a lot of apartments here don't come with built-in closet space.

The apartment has its own garden! How cool is that. It will be really lovely to eat here with guests when the weather is warmer. It's a little odd, though, that the only access to the garden is through the master bedroom. Marlon and I are toying with the idea of switching spaces, i.e. using this room as the living/dining area and the front room as the master bedroom. But then that would mean that our bedroom faces the street.

A relatively spacious kitchen, with the very rare full-sized refrigerator (who needs a refrigerator when it's already cold outside? is the Dutch logic) and enough space for our kopitiam table, Eames chairs and maybe some extra shelving.

Looking at it on the map, Beethovenstraat seems kind of far from the center of town (the canal belt up top), but it's only about ten minutes by tram. The Museumplein where the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum are about three stops away. Yep, Amsterdam is that small.

For guests (that's you!), there's a direct train from Schiphol Airport to Station Zuid, which you can see is practically walkable from the apartment.

So root for us to get it! It's a great apartment for you too!

Prins Charming

Every girl dreams of meeting a dashing prince who will sweep her off her feet. Well, friends, it finally happened to me. 

His name is Prins Henrikkade. You could say he had me at hello. 

A listed historical building on the Prins Henrikkade facing the water, a few minutes' walk from Centraal Station and the public library, this apartment got my heart beating from the moment I walked into the perfectly preserved, shared entrance.

Being on the first floor (or second floor to us non-Europeans), even the dreaded staircase was transformed into a delightful confection. Kulang na lang ang yellow gown ko and my Beast waiting on the ground floor. Or, since I have a short bob and no yellow gown, baka dapat ang naghihintay sa akin sa baba ay si Captain Von Trapp.

The front door opened into a spacious kitchen, a full room instead of the little strip that is common to all the apartments I've seen so far. We could probably fit a decent dining table inside. I knew Marlon would love it.

And the living space. Exposed beams, herringbone floors, a gas fireplace... swoon.

*SHOOP!* Your Highness, pardon the sound of my panty falling.

This huge front room was linked to the back of the apartment by a small hallway...

... that looked out into a small light/airwell. The Prins was pushing all the right architectural buttons. Naughty naughty.

A decent-sized second bedroom for our many future guests, and at least one future baby.

Connected by an equally decent-sized bathroom...

... to the most stupendous master bedroom in the history of all house-hunts!

Fall to your knees, peasants! Behold!

I may have seen one too many episodes of So You Think You Can Dance, but it made me feel like breaking into a Viennese waltz. When the housing agent opened the original built-in closets, I simply melted into a vaguely girl-shaped puddle on the floor.

The best part about this handsome Prins? He's well out of the heavily touristed area, but just one or two streets away from the classic city centre views. With a "negotiable" asking price just a hundred Euros away from our budget range, I thought I had found my happily ever after. After seeing the pictures, Marlon gave me the go-ahead to tell our agent to make an offer.

But...

Like many modern-day fairy tales, this one does not have a happy ending.

Choosy pala si Prins Henrikkade. After my agent made the offer, the owner's agent nosed around into Marlon's salary, length of contract and tax status, then requested soft copies of his employment contract and both our passports. Mayabang ang lola mo at muntik ko nang sampalin ang kontrata sa mga mukha nila. But of course there is no way to make sampal with a soft copy, jejeje.

Yesterday I got a call from my agent. The owner rejected our offer. Not because of our income. Not even because of our nationality. But because of... our cat.

Unwanted :( :( :(

"The apartment has been newly carpeted, newly curtained, blah blah blah..."They didn't even want to put in a standard clause holding us liable for all pet-related damage. My agent was pretty pissed (his commission just rode off into the sunset!), declaring this truly unfortunate and unreasonable.

Lesson of the story: don't give your heart to the first Prins you meet. He just might turn out to be another frog.

The End.

Hunting season

"There's no such thing as a perfect apartment," warned my ex-boss, who lived and still owns property in Amsterdam. It might be in a great location, but tiny and with vertiginous staircases; spacious, but expensive; cheap, but with wooden beams poking out of odd places, or visitors having to enter directly into the kitchen instead of a proper entryway.

So far I've found this to be true. Working with two different housing agents (one assigned by the relocation agency, another that I found off the Net) and seeing 18 apartments over three days of viewing, I got a mixed bag of hits and misses. Marlon was only with me for the first day; I took over when he started work.

There were a couple of places boasting that Holy Grail of real estate, a classic Amsterdam canal view. One of the first apartments we saw was along the Singel, one of the famous canals in the city center. When the agent drove into this area, kinilig talaga kami ni Marlon.

Imagine looking out your window and enjoying this view every day. 

It even had a fireplace!

It also had a pair of Roman pillars in the bedroom. Roman pillars! So, thanks but no thanks.

Another canal-side apartment was sunk into a basement. A priceless canal view can be yours, if you can see past the various-feet view and dog-poop-on-the-street view.

Look down, look down, don't look 'em in the eye

A corner apartment on the Prinsengracht had this view in front...

... and a touristy strip of bars and restaurants on the side. "I should probably let you know that this is... not the quietest area in Amsterdam," the owner suggested delicately. Got the message loud and clear.

From centuries-old buildings, we headed off to the newer part of town. Newer in the sense that the buildings were built in the 1920s lang naman. Amsterdam hosted the Olympics in 1928 and built accommodations for the athletes, near the Olympic Stadium in the Zuid (pronounced Zoud, which means, you guessed it, South). This explains why the buildings all look alike. Still, a lot of them have little details characteristic of the era.

Zuid seems far from Marlon's office on the map, but one thing I've come to realize (after every Dutch person I know telling me this) is that Amsterdam is tiny and that everything is pretty close by. In this area, the apartments started looking less... er, quirky, and more livable. They were more spacious, too. 

We even found one that we really liked.

We also saw one with a garden and a small studio, but figured maintaining the garden was too big of a commitment. Neither of us have had much luck with plants.

One of the apartments in the low end of our budget range had some very... distinctive, and, er, historical marks embossed into the old metal doors.

Dahil sa madugong kasaysayan ng lugar na ito, na-afraid ako sa mga bagay na hindi nakikita, na baka makita ko. Pero mas na-afraid ako sa hagdan.

I ventured far west of the city, to an area called De Baarsjes. Though it's walking distance to the Vondelpark, Amsterdam's own version of Central Park, medyo hindi kanais-nais ang lugar. Again, a mixed bag—a roof terrace...

But rather depressing, cell-like bedrooms.

Far east of the city, in a sort of industrial/dock area called Zeeburg, was a nice corner apartment with tons of light, and a sweet dining nook.

But, in the words of the housing agent: "Here we have a very different part of town." And in the words of Ellen, my relocation agency yaya for the day, "This neighborhood is not so nice." Hindi naman siya ghetto. But all the gray cement blocks just don't say Amsterdam to me.

As Anna, our previous relocation consultant said about another apartment, "It could be anywhere. It could be in Denmark, for goodness' sake." (No offense to the Danes, of course.) The apartment she was referring to was an absolute no-no for Marlon. Paano ba naman, the master bedroom looks directly into the Philips tower, one of their two offices in the city.

Kamusta namang your colleagues can just look into your bedroom to see if you're really at home when you call in sick? And thank goodness Europe doesn't have much of an overtime culture, because Marlon would hate for his colleagues to know what goes on at night!

Sniff

Okay we can't afford the house. Not by a long shot.

It's hard to say goodbye. :P

This old house

I love old houses.

I love the kind that were built in the 50s and 60s, like our old house on Hydra Street in Bel-Air, with adobe walls, crazy-cut flooring, pendant lights and exposed beams.

Even though I am not wild about jalousie windows or solid wood-panelled walls, there is just something about these old houses that speaks to me. Yes, they might have termites or faulty plumbing or deteriorating kitchens, but they also have architectural details you just can't find anymore. They have a light, a kind of magic about them that you can't recreate these days. They remind me of my childhood.

Marlon knows about my love for old houses, but the thought of my... special "abilities", plus what could possibly be lurking in those old houses creeps him out. So he would rather go for a new house. Still, I am hopeful that if we could find the just right old house, I could convince him to go for a fixer-upper instead.

I recently learned about a lovely old house in Mandaluyong, built in the 60s, which used to belong to a person who was very dear to Marlon and myself (and instrumental in our having met at all!). I used to drive by it every day on the way to work and never knew it belonged to that person. It's been put on the market and when I saw the photos I couldn't help myself -- I inquired with the seller's agent.

I hope we can afford it. I would get over my aversion to long-term bank loans for this one. And besides, to assuage my husband's fears, I'm positive the former owner wouldn't be lurking around the house anymore. Heaven must have instantaneously feted her arrival with a sumptuous banquet.

Photo courtesy of M. Besa Roxas.

Criteria

I suppose I'm being rather romantic in my approach to the question of land. Of course there are practical considerations, budget naturally foremost among them. I am horiffically debt-phobic to a fault and want to pay off the whole thing in the shortest amount of time.

I want a place within Metro Manila since I'm not wild about the thought of having to ply South Super Highway daily, and for all its development Sta. Rosa, Laguna still doesn't have the best schools. Since college, Quezon City has been pretty much where my life is -- school, choir, friends, my work at GMA -- and luckily there are still pockets of relatively affordable land in QC that would allow me to keep it that way. I always consider accessibility to public transportation, thinking back to high school when we lost our car and I had to learn how to commute (fortunately Bel-Air was in the middle of it all). And of course after Ondoy, elevation and proximity to creeks and other bodies of water has become a huge factor.

But once I actually come face to face with a lot, I begin looking for an unquantifiable "something". My inner romantic takes over and begins sniffing the air. I look for a feeling of spaciousness -- and yes I know every empty lot has a lot of space, har har har. I don't like feeling hemmed in by other houses that block out the sunshine or the breeze. To me, a lot with a tree or two is always an instant contender. (I was wild about this lot that had four fully-grown pine trees in it until I found out that it was one of the worst hit by Ondoy.) So is a lot with a slope, a view or even an odd shape simply because it's different from everyone else's.

Mostly I just think to myself, Can I live here for the rest of my life? Will I like waking up and seeing this every single day? How quickly or how much the land value will appreciate is the last thing on my mind, so thank goodness Marlon is around to think about things like that. My approach to land at this point is like how I think about paintings -- not for profiting but enjoying, not for re-selling but for living in. Maybe in the future if we become fortunate enough to have a little extra to invest, I'll start thinking that way, but right now all I really care about is building a home for our someday-family.

Besides, there's much more joy and comfort in breezes and trees and sunshine than there is in bank loans and interest rates and capital gains tax. So I'll stick to my romanticism, thanks.

Multiple choice

A) is a property that exists.

Meaning, I've seen it. We can afford it if we struggle a bit, cut out all travel for the next six months, and take out a year-long bank loan on shockingly stiff Singapore interest rates. It has supposedly bad feng shui, not that I really believe in that. It has trees right behind it, a nice open view and a slight slope. It has the all-important flood-proofness, being more than 40m above the nearest river. Living there will put us near friends and the schools we would like our children to go to. It is for living. It's just the right size, just the right price (if we didn't have to pay in cash) lovely. I can picture our house in it, although I can't picture the house.

B) is a property that does not exist.

Yet. Or it exists on paper. Or as raw farmland with no roads, no civilization, and only the glimmer of a potential value. It is a high-end development that has yet to be stamped with the official approval to break ground, by a known developer that has had its own ups and downs. It is a good deal -- or so it will be once it starts selling, because we are in a position to buy before anyone else does. It will be very high above ground, with a view. It will cost more than we intended to spend for a piece of property. Yet it is said to be an "investment." It is promising. (Actually, to me it occurs more as a promise than an actual property.) It is not quite certain to materialize -- yet. If it does, it might just be worth waiting for.

C) is none of the above.

A piece of land perfect for building a home, that might still be out there somewhere. We just haven't found it yet. Or have we?

Pencils up.