When I recall what AIM professor and problogger extraordinaire Anton Diaz asked me that invigorating September night in class: ”What’s your passion?”, something stirred in me. I felt the mounting excitement of my vision affirmed by those words.
He said it would be hard to deviate from what you’re passionate about when you blog, for that’s where your strengths lie. Recalling that moment I decided to do a review of Residences Manila, which I secretly conceived as an experiment for my Maven Secrets problogging class.
The spark of Residences Manila was to blog about the lux and mid-market condo communities in Alabang, Fort Bonifacio Global City, and Makati. I wanted to capture online the snapshots and stories of what it meant to be a condo dweller living in a community. I winced at listing blogs that described these projects, just like a product. Model units, though pretty and chic, still seemed lifeless and isolated like mug shots of homes in a lineup. The model units were beginning to look alike. I wanted to make the home search come alive, create some excitement, make it resonate in the reader’s mind’s eye. I wanted to do it differently online–yet again.
Traipsing almost daily among these three territories gave me a real feel of the ins and outs of the estates. And I enjoyed doing this. I love going thru Alabang, the Fort, and Makati City. And it’s not about shopping, but the experience of the new and unknown.
As a broker who loves aesthetics and imagining what is possible in a unit of space, I could always visualize different looks of condos, in different styles–no matter how worn or how new the place looked. And beyond that, how the pulse of the community made that relatively small space a more homey one for its resident. That was the researcher within me observing colors, spaces, people, movement, pulsating patterns of life around the area.
I must admit though that there are places in these territories that I resonate with more than others. My ‘goodness-of-fit’ radar is better in these 3 places. I’ll stick to that for now.
Somehow, I felt I deviated from the original spirit of this blog. Some pressure to include listings on houses and first time home buyers gave it less voice online.
My stats counter prove that my viewers do want to see these lux finds and unique apartment listings on Residences Manila. But they also want to see the life behind and around the four walls of that pretty condo in photos.
So I return to Residences Manila’s original spirit. Expect news about the condo, the best-in-class estates, the good apartment finds around the Metro. I will write about the urbanite apartment dweller’s usually great, sometimes challenging experiences of living in the condo. There are surely many stories for this, as many as the units and floors for each condo estate!
Do expect to read on how to dress up your residential gem, tips on living, lifestyle and renewal for your home in the sky. Lux means many things to many people. But in Residences Manila, lux living means getting the most for your space, making it what you want to be, and living the life that you really want within those four fabulous walls.
