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Makati has a split personality depending on the area you're in. Greenbelt and Rockwell are considered clean, safe, and livable for longer stays. They have organized streets, decent-sized parks, and easy access to malls, especially around Greenbelt. These neighborhoods offer a more comfortable environment and are generally recommended over other parts of Makati. BGC in Taguig is also suggested as a good alternative, with clean streets, plenty of greenery, and modern amenities, although some find it too commercial and congested.
In contrast, other areas like Poblacion are strongly discouraged. Multiple reviewers mentioned it being chaotic, dirty, and unsafe, especially at night, with pests and unappealing street activity. Issues with cockroaches and even rats were reported, even in newer or upscale buildings. Traffic in Manila overall is a major issue, making travel time-consuming. Internet speeds can be decent (up to 50 mbps), but connectivity seems to suffer from stability issues, affecting things like video calls and remote work.
For a better experience, it's advised to rent condos or serviced apartments in well-reviewed locations like Greenbelt or stay in hotels. Airbnb options were generally regarded as low quality. Internet reliability varies by building, so it's best to confirm before moving in if working remotely.
AI-generated summary of reviews
6 months ago
Makati greenbelt and rockwell are nice enough to stay long-term. Especially greenbelt is clean and safe, the greenbelt mall and park is outstanding. Around greenbelt you have three decent sized parks available. Outside of this small bubble of cosiness its chaos dirt and sketchiness. Stay away from Poblacion, its just disgusting. Best bet for a clean and comfortable place to stay are hotels and serviced apartments. Avoid airbnb, its all trash. BGC is another alternative, tough I don't like it much there, its too crowded and too much traffic for me.
2 years ago
A spot that that you pick in Makati is of crucial importance. I've stayed one month in Gramercy Residences, Poblacion only to have a base to visit other Asian countries like China, Korea, Japan. It's very chaotic neighborhood, dirty, in the night there are prostitutes, sexpats and viagra sellers stopping you when you walk in the street. Some of the streets in the night were full of cockroaches and rats, definitely not a good view. Apart from this Makati is known to have cockroach problem in the apartments themselves - in my apartment I had to kill on average 1 per day. And it was still very nice building. The traffic in Manila is super high, and the streets are not very organized - that means travelling anywhere will take you a lot of time. One time going from Makati to Intramuros took me 1 hour 30 minutes. Internet in my apartment was 50 mb/s and I was connected by LAN Cable, however still I had problems with connection (even though the speed was ok it wasn't stable which resulted in dropping from some calls etc.) I don't recommend staying for longer time but if you need to stay in Makati then pick area around greenbelt as the streets are more organized, clean and the area is just more nice. Good thing about Makati is that it has also some nice night life and good rooftop bars. However the only place I wold recommend staying in Manila is BGC in Taguig. This is a very organized area, clean with nice restaurants, bars, streets, lots of greenery. It's not chaotic and dirty. And the apartment prices are similar to Makati for 1 month stay.
2 years ago
My husband and I want to move to Makati but our decision really depends on how good the internet services are when working from home in a condo either in Makati or BGC. He will be on zoom meeting and calls pretty much all day. Would the internet be good enough without too much interruptions? What would be the best internet service provider? Thank
4 years ago