Smart home AI renovation

Smart home AI renovation leverages artificial intelligence to automate and simplify home design, allowing users to get design plans, inspiration, and realistic visualizations by uploading room photos or floor plans.

AI tools can instantly generate interior design concepts, swap furniture, suggest color palettes, and even preview new flooring or walls, helping homeowners, renters, and designers quickly visualize and plan renovations. 

How Smart Home AI Renovation Works

1. Upload a Photo or Floor Plan: Start by providing a photo of your existing room or a digital floor plan.

2. Select Design Preferences: Choose from a range of styles, like modern, farmhouse, or Scandinavian, to guide the AI.

3. AI Generates Designs: The AI algorithm processes your input and generates realistic 2D, 3D, or VR renderings of your space, featuring personalized furniture placement, color schemes, and decor suggestions.

4. Customize and Refine: You can then adjust the AI-generated designs, swapping furniture, changing colors, or trying different materials using a drag-and-drop editor.

5. Visualize the Results: The platform provides high-resolution mockups, helping you visualize the final look before making any physical changes. 

Benefits of Using AI for Renovation

• Personalized Designs: AI tailors designs to your specific room dimensions, style preferences, and functional needs.

• Time and Cost Efficiency: Generate multiple design ideas quickly, saving time on manual planning and potentially reducing costs associated with professional designers for initial concepts.

• Realistic Visualization: See photorealistic images of your space with actual furniture and decor before you buy anything or hire contractors.

• Creative Inspiration: Explore a wide variety of design themes and get unique ideas for furniture, colors, and decor that you might not have considered otherwise. 

Popular AI Tools for Renovation

• Ideal House: Offers AI tools for home decor and interior design, providing design plans and inspiration.

• AI Home: Smart Interior Design: Allows users to upload a photo and get instant room makeovers with design concepts, furniture, and color suggestions.

• DecAI: Helps users visualize new furniture, colors, and textures in their own spaces, making room makeovers easy.

• Planner 5D: Provides a platform to create floor plans, move walls, and test different materials, with AI generating functional and aesthetic layouts.

• Remodel AI: A tool that helps with inspiration and visualizing different design concepts, including colors and textures. 

Source: Ziggurat Real Estate

Building the foundations of happiness

October is National Shelter Month in the Philippines, a celebration to promote dignified, safe, and affordable housing for Filipino families. Led by the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD), this year’s theme is “Build Homes, Build Happiness,” aiming to unite government agencies, private developers, and other stakeholders in the mission of providing Filipinos with one of the most fundamental of human rights: the right to adequate shelter.

“A home is where children feel safe to dream, where parents find strength, and where families draw comfort during difficult times. More than shelters, it is about building dignified lives,” DHSUD Secretary Jose Ramon Aliling said in a statement.

“In line with President [Ferdinand] Marcos, Jr.’s directive, we will intensify the promotion of a dignified life for our fellow Filipinos through decent housing and fast, transparent public service,” he said in Filipino.

Every October, the DHSUD and its key shelter agencies mount a month-long series of events across the country to advance the national housing agenda. Regional offices lead housing summits, community caravans, training programs, and project site visits designed to foster collaboration among stakeholders and open more pathways for Filipinos to obtain safe, affordable, and resilient homes.

First declared through Proclamation No. 662 in 1995, National Shelter Month underscores housing as both a foundation of nation-building and a collective duty, one that necessitates the cooperation of the government, private developers, and communities in the pursuit of inclusive human settlements.

THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR

As of 2023, according to the UN-Habitat Philippines, there is a backlog of 6.5 million housing units in the country, with an estimated 3.7 million informal settler families directly impacted by this deficit. Compounding the problem are the increasing rate of urban migration due to a host of factors displacing Filipinos from their homes, such as armed conflict, systemic inequity, and climate change.

Furthermore, the backlog is bottlenecked by declining housing production as result of slow bureaucratic, regulatory and approving procedures, a high reliance on private sector investment, and inadequate budget allocation for housing. It is highly likely this gap has widened since 2023.

The DHSUD has been established for this very purpose, as it serves as the Philippines’ lead agency for housing, human settlements, and urban development. Established on Feb. 14, 2019 through Republic Act No. 11201, it unifies housing policy, regulation, and planning under one institution. The law consolidated the functions of the former Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board and the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, while transferring adjudication duties to the Human Settlements Adjudication Commission (HSAC).

As the government’s central policy-making and regulatory body for shelter and urban development, the DHSUD’s mission is to ensure that every Filipino has access to affordable, safe, and livable communities. It oversees four key shelter agencies: the National Housing Authority (NHA), which leads public housing production; the Pag-IBIG Fund, which mobilizes national savings and provides low-cost housing finance; the Social Housing Finance Corp. (SHFC), which implements socialized housing programs for low-income and informal settler families; and the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp. (NHMFC), which sustains affordable housing loans through a secondary mortgage market.

Each key shelter agency plays a role in the overall mission. For instance, the NHA this year made huge strides in furthering the administration’s flagship housing initiative, the Expanded Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino (4PH) Program. Last May, President Marcos signed into law a new measure expanding and strengthening the mandates of the NHA, and extending the agency’s corporate life by another 25 years effective July 31.

Among the important provisions of the new law is the inclusion of two expert parallel members with expertise in housing, urban planning, and development in the agency’s board to allow more active private sector contributions to the development of a more inclusive government housing program. Also included are provisions for three assistant general managers to enable more efficient management and operations within the agency’s day-to-day affairs, compared to only one in the old charter.

Meanwhile, agencies like the SHFC and NHMFC are working on ways to make housing more accessible. A recent example is a moratorium on amortization payments for borrowers affected by natural disasters such as Tropical Storm “Crising” and the southwest monsoon last July.

This temporary payment relief allows families to focus on recovery without the immediate pressure of monthly dues. It forms part of a broader government effort, alongside the DHSUD, NHA, and Pag-IBIG Fund, to provide financial breathing room and preserve homeownership stability for disaster-stricken communities.

For this year’s National Shelter Month, Secretary Aliling highlighted two key milestones that mark significant progress in tackling the country’s housing challenges. The first is a newly approved memorandum of agreement with the University of the Philippines (UP) to launch a pilot rental housing project for informal settler families within the UP Diliman campus — a pioneering initiative that aims to provide secure, affordable shelter in urban areas. The Home Development Mutual Fund, more known as Pag-IBIG Fund, have expressed support for this initiative as well.

“This is just the beginning,” Mr. Aliling said. “More rental housing projects will be rolled out in line with President Marcos, Jr.’s directive to ensure dignified living for all Filipinos.”

The second milestone is the forthcoming distribution of certificates of award to families who have lived for decades on lands covered by Presidential proclamations. This long-awaited step, he added, will finally grant thousands of long-term occupants the security of tenure and peace of mind they have sought for generations.

“When we build homes, we strengthen our nation. When we build happiness, we fulfill the highest purpose of public service, uplifting lives and giving every Filipino family the future they deserve,” Mr. Aliling said.

“Every home we build is a story of hope, and every family we serve is a testament to why public service matters. Together, we can make Bagong Pilipinas a reality — one home, one community, one future at a time,” he had said.

Source: Business World

Failure to pay within the period stipulated

In a sales contract involving real property, the agreement that the vendee’s failure to make full payment on the agreed time will render the sale rescinded, the vendee may still pay as long as the vendor does not make a demand for rescission.

Article 1592 of the New Civil Code of the Philippines provides that “in the sale of immovable property, even though it may have been stipulated that upon failure to pay the price at the time agreed upon the rescission of the contract shall of right take place, the vendee may pay, even after the expiration of the period, as long as no demand for rescission of the contract has been made upon him either judicially or by a notarial act. After the demand, the court may not grant him a new term.”

Clearly, Article 1592 of the said Code allows a vendee to pay as long as no demand for rescission has been made by the vendor or seller. This is supported by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Province of Cebu vs. Heirs of Rufina Morales, GR 170115, Feb. 19, 2008, penned by Honorable Associate Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, which held:

“Thus, respondents could still tender payment of the full purchase price as no demand for rescission had been made upon them, either judicially or through notarial act. While it is true that it took a long time for respondents to bring suit for specific performance and consign the balance of the purchase price, it is equally true that petitioner or its predecessor did not take any action to have the contract of sale rescinded.

Article 1592 allows the vendee to pay as long as no demand for rescission has been made. The consignation of the balance of the purchase price before the trial court thus operated as full payment, which resulted in the extinguishment of respondents’ obligation under the contract of sale.”

Further, in the earlier case of The City of Cebu vs. Heirs of Rubi, GR 128579, April 29, 1999, penned by Honorable Associate Justice Minerva Gonzaga-Reyes, the high court ruled:

“It is not disputed that the City of Cebu did not give notice of rescission much less make a judicial or notarial demand for rescission. The only subsequent action taken by petitioner was to send to the respondents a ‘Formal Notice’ dated March 4, 1989 ordering the latter to vacate the premises within fifteen days from receipt of notice for the reason that the occupancy of lot 1141-D is presumed to be illegal as the lot is still registered in the name of the City of Cebu. This letter did not amount to a demand for rescission, as indeed there was no reference to the sale much less a declaration that the sale was being rescinded or abrogated from the beginning. It was only when the City of Cebu filed its Answer on June 15, 1989 to the instant complaint for specific performance that the city invoked ‘automatic rescission’ and prayed for relief allowing it to rescind the contract.”

In case, you failed to make the full payment on the stipulated date, you may still tender payment despite the expiration of the period as long as no demand for rescission has been made by the vendor, either through a judicial action or notarial act.

Source: Manila Times