Sources and Methodology

Apartments.ph aims to make every figure and rule in its guides traceable to a source you can check yourself. This page sets out which sources we rely on, how we cite them, and how much weight each kind of figure can carry. It works alongside our Editorial Policy.

Source hierarchy

For any rule, rate, fee, cap or deadline, we go first to the source that creates it: the law itself, its implementing rules, or the issuance of the agency that sets it. In practice that means statutes and regulations on official or recognised legal databases, and the agencies that run Philippine property and housing: the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development and its Human Settlements Adjudication Commission, the Land Registration Authority and Registries of Deeds, Pag-IBIG Fund, the Philippine Statistics Authority, and the local government that collects a tax or issues a permit.

Secondary sources

News reports, industry reports and other explainers can give useful context, but they never replace the law or the agency issuance. Where they disagree with an official source, the official source wins. We do not take official figures from other property blogs, listing portals or law-firm marketing pages.

Market prices and rents

No agency sets what a condo sells for or what a unit rents for. When a guide gives price or rent ranges, they come from published market data, such as listing-price reports and official statistics, and the guide names the source and the date. These are indicative asking-price ranges, not what a specific unit will sell or rent for, and not an appraisal. We do not run our own price surveys or a listings database.

Citation practice

We cite as precisely as is practical: the law and its section, the agency issuance and its number and date, or the report and the period it covers, with a link to an official or original copy. Where a figure can change, the guide says when it was current, for example “as of” a month and year.

Worked examples and explanations

Some guides walk through a calculation, such as the taxes on a sale or the yield on a rental. We build these ourselves from the official figures, state every input and show the steps, so you can redo the sum with your own numbers. Our summaries and examples explain the rules in plain language. They are not the legal text itself, and they are not a quote or a valuation.

Unavailable or changing sources

If an official source cannot be reached, we may rely on a reliable alternative copy and say so in the guide. If we cannot trace a figure to a checkable source at all, we do not publish it: we describe the range and what drives it instead. Figures that change, such as tax rates, rent caps and market ranges, are checked again when the law, issuance or data behind them changes.

Who is responsible

Marjo Villarosa, our Lead Publisher, is responsible for this policy and for the source checks on what we publish. If a figure looks wrong, tell us through our Contact page, with the page and the source you think is right. We check it and, if it is wrong, fix it as our Corrections Policy sets out.