We are currently on “waiting” mode.  After seeing countless houses and talking to many brokers I have found a nice and charming 3-bedroom bungalow sitting on a 500 sqm lot with (semi)manicured garden.  This is actually how it happened.  One day I received a phone call from a lady with a nice voice that sounded like Ann Curtis. If you don’t know Ann Curtis it’s either you aren’t Filipino or you don’t have ABS CBN in your home. Anyways, before I get off track, she told me that I sent her an SMS inquiry about the house.  However, I knew that I sent like a thousand SMS for the past few days.. OK maybe 100 so I said when and asked politely which house she is referring to.  She chuckled a bit and told me that I sounded like a job applicant who just posted her resume gazillion times in the internet.  Anyways, we had a good laugh after that.  She told me that this house was newly renovated and it was the house where she grew up in.  She currently lives in the US Northeast.  It sounded really nice so I asked for an appointment.  She left me the phone numbers again, her US number and  her local assistant’s mobile number.  I told MrC about it and he was also interested.  The next day we visited the house.

The house was inside an established neighborhood with a village in its suffix.  However, we did not see any 24-hour guard and gates which bothered us first but after seeing the house we were willing to set it aside.   At the back of the house, we could see a giant Buddhist Temple and it was breezy and full of mature trees around it.  There were plenty of spaces for gardening which is a great plus for us.  It also had an enclosed or screened sun room or verandah with doors that you could lock.  Everything was in great condition and lovingly cared for so to speak.  Only thing is that it was not airconditioner ready but it was a house made to be well ventilated.

And so, we called the owner and told her that we were interested in renting the house and told her about our requests regarding installation of airconditioning units, extending the height of the gates among others.  All of our communication was done via e-mail.   We filled up a whole application form that looks like a job application form.   We had to fill in our incomes, employer information (current and past) and even had to provide 2 personal reference letters and 1 from our bank!  Geez we’re not even buying the house yet.  And then then we didn’t hear from her for a couple of days.  We got a bit worried so I gave her a call.  She told me that she is still working on the documents and her power-of-attorney to be given to her friend who lives here.  So in the end, we agreed on a September 1 target move-in which would be reflected in the contract.

Another issue that we still had to settle was the live-in caretakers.  We were given the choice of hiring them. If we do not hire them, then they obviously have to find a new place to live.  Eventually, we could see ourselves hiring household help primarily to have someone watch over the house while we’re not there and also for the additional work and maintenance involved in having a house with a garden.  We decided to visit the house again and interview the caretaker couple living there.  They seemed quite a nice and industrious couple.  However, as it turned out, she was already 4 months pregnant!  OK, that is a deal breaker indeed.  With this in mind, we thought it might be better to offer the place to our current driver and his wife who is also our all-around cleaner who comes everyday to clean the office and our condo.  They have been working for us since March and we are very impressed with their attitude and the quality of their job.  Only thing is that they have a toddler .   But that issue can be solved with a little organization and some house rules I think.  I hope they accept our offer.

Meanwhile, at work, a new developer was hired for doing .NET work but we were lucky to find out he was also good in Linux he was able to setup and configure our internet well in the office.  We are currently interviewing more Junior to Medior PHP programmers.