Veal Estate

My friend Ernie has decided to give up the comparatively carefree existence of a tenant and buy himself a condominium. I cited the advantages of renting over owning, but you cannot deter a gay man on a real estate quest. I’m not in the market myself — basic poverty —but I tagged along in case I ever need to write a case study for a journal of psychiatry.

For perpetual singles, the decision to buy a domicile of one’s own is the equivalent of getting married. Some of us simply cannot commit: What if I have to move to Budapest on short notice, what would I do with my flat? What if Marat Safin is suddenly available and he insists we live in Moscow? Those who do take the plunge have to vet their options as if they were getting a husband: condo ownership lasts 99 years, which is longer than even the best marriages.

First we went to a new condo complex by a company whose residential buildings we like. Rather, we went to the model unit because the complex does not yet exist; the units are being pre-sold. Personally I like to be able to see, touch, and kick what I’m buying; life is uncertain enough without coughing up money for an idea of an apartment.

However, there are advantages to buying a condo before it’s been built. You pay less, supposedly, and the theoretical savings get theoretically bigger because the cost of real estate is theoretically increasing. They tell us this in the middle of a factual global recession.

The model unit was designed to make the 34-square meter studio look bigger than it really is. This means lots of mirrors so everywhere you turn, there’s. . .you. The sleeping area was arranged so cleverly, it looked like one might have some privacy despite the absence of walls.

But the developer’s most clever move was to assign a cute, fashionable young man to give us the tour of the premises. We all know that attractive salesmen have signal jammers that disrupt neural traffic in our brains, causing us to sign contracts without thinking.

However, we neurotics were prepared for such a sneak attack. I overcompensated by channeling Bette Davis saying, “What a dump.” Ernie was protected by his pathological aversion to commitment: he can’t look at anything without looking for something better.

The sales agent was devious. He said the magic words, “Perpetual ownership.” That’s how I learned that you don’t own a condo forever; basically you’re taking out a long lease on airspace. Condos are not like land, which is secure until the melting of the ice caps submerges it in water or dark forces open up a Hellmouth on those exact coordinates. The word “perpetual” tripped a wire in Ernie’s brain, causing long discussions with the next sales agents on the nature of “forever.”

Apparently the going rate of “forever” is P3 million pesos.

The following week I accompanied Ernie to an open house at another development. By then he had looked at four condos, two of which were already built, but was nowhere near a decision.

This next condo was at a desirable address close to business and commercial centers. The agent, who was nice but not a model, walked us through the studio.

It was tiny. And I mean tiiiiny. Everything in it had to bear the suffix -ette. The table in the dinette was three steps from the door, and if you turned too abruptly you would bump into the kitchenette. Three more steps and there was the sofa bed. The decorators were not so clever: they could not conceal the fact that they were hawking a closet for P1.8 million. Except that it was called a 24-square meter studio.

These condos are sold to middle-class working people who went to college and have jobs in offices. They work, pay their taxes, patronize local businesses, and stay in the Philippines instead of getting better-paying jobs abroad. And this is what they are urged to strive, save up, and get into debt for: the life of veal. (Correction: The old life of veal, since the practice of keeping them in tiny crates has been banned in Europe and is being phased out in the US.)

Yeah, yeah, housing market economics, real estate, construction costs blah, blah. Spin it any way you can, these closets are expensive.

Sensing my claustrophobia the sales agent took us to the one and two-bedroom model units. I will never complain about my apartment again. It turns out that space-wise I live in a four-bedroom house.

The “bedroom” was a bed shoved into a corner — one wall was the headboard, the other wall the footrest. That’s right, footrest, because if you stretch out you’d have to raise your legs. You can only get into bed from one side. Who’s the target market, leprechauns?

Nearly all the apartments in the unbuilt building had been sold, so from a bottom-line revenue perspective you could argue that I’m making a fuss over nothing. You may even say that normal, responsible citizens do not need as much space as I do. Fine, you might have a point.

Inevitably someone will bring up Tokyo. How crowded it is, how space is at a premium. How their apartments aren’t even closet-size, but filing cabinet drawer-size.

Come here. Closer. Move your face closer to the newspaper, I have to tell you something.

We’re not in Tokyo! This is Manila! We still have room!

At presstime Ernie has already decided on a condo, but is still looking at model units in case the “ideal” materializes. It is I who have reached a decision. I love my apartment. I can pace up and down all night and drive only myself crazy.

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E-mail your comments and suggestions to emotionalweatherreport @gmail.com. Do not send me ads for condominium units, I’m not kidding.