Carmudi Ensures Car Buying Safety with Rapide Partnership

Wazzup Pilipinas!

As shopping for a vehicle can now be done in various ways—online, dealerships and pre-owned shops, among others—the risk of being victimized by fraudsters increases. Horror stories about restored flooded vehicles, or cars that figured in countless accidents being sold at attractive prices are usually the case of secondhand vehicles, so how would you know if the pre-owned car you’re eyeing is a good buy?

Based on the research made by the National Telehealth Center under the University of the Philippines, there are 44.2 million active internet users in the Philippines. With that figure alone, it is easy to say that around the same number are possible victims of online fraud.

First time buyers of pre-owned vehicles would always say that there is no foolproof solution when it comes to purchasing a secondhand vehicle, except maybe bringing a trusted mechanic to assess the overall condition of the vehicle one wants to buy.

Many sellers would brag about the capabilities of the car, the money shelled out putting aftermarket parts, but some have failed— intentionally or not—to mention even the most glaring issues, just to have the vehicles peddled or traded.

Here's An Affordable Calling Plan to the Philippines

Wazzup Pilipinas!

For as low as P700 per month, Airtel customers from around the world using the airtel talk app get access to unlimited calls to Globe/TM customers in the Philippines

Globe Telecom has forged a partnership with Bharti Airtel to give Airtel customers from around the world access to an affordable calling plan to the Philippines via Airtel’s voice calling app airtel talk.

With the partnership, airtel talk users can make unlimited high-quality VoIP calls to their Globe and TM contacts in the country for as low as USD14.99 or P700 for a 30-day period, or only P23.30 per day.

Available on both iOS and Android, airtel talk offers superior call quality, exclusive call me free service, multi-party conferencing, voice message chat, multi-device access, free audio/video app-to-app calling, and instant phonebook access.

“We are very excited about this partnership with Airtel as we cement our commitment to help bridge the gap between Filipinos around the world and their loved ones back home through affordable calling services and rates. Calling remains an effective means to connect Filipino families with each other and through this collaboration, we are able to offer an affordable calling plan via airtel talk. This is indeed another milestone in the regional telco landscape as two of the biggest telcos converge to give customers another innovative service that gives customers access to unlimited calling at a price within reach,” says Nikko Acosta, Senior Vice President for International Business Group at Globe.

Luxury Properties and Their Place in Philippine Real Estate

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Despite the challenges the Philippine economy continues to face, it still enjoys steady growth, with no less than the World Bank projecting a rate of 6.4 percent for the country in 2016. Real estate has been a beneficiary of, and contributor to, this sustained growth, with the nation’s capital of Metro Manila going as far as being included in Jones Lang LaSalle’s Commercial Attraction Index as one of the top 30 real estate investment cities in the world.

Expectedly, many predict that the continued shift of demand toward middle-income properties will be what will help sustain overall growth of the real estate market the most, as it is these properties that can be afforded by most with disposable incomes. In no way does this devalue luxury properties, however, as mentioned in Lamudi Philippine’s 2015 Real Estate Report: “There are many reasons why ultra-luxurious properties are considered a safe investment: their values rarely—if ever—stagnate.”

The report further indicated how leasing, both from local tenants and the expanding expatriate population, will be an increasing source of yield for these luxury properties, and that the most definitive of these are found in the cities of Makati and Taguig, and in a number of high-end townships in Cavite and Laguna.