Sue

Not living there myself I don't know much about this topic, but it was an interesting article and so I thought I would share the link here in case anyone wanted to read it.

I'm not sure if I really understand what point the article was trying to make, it seemed to me the author was suggesting that the property market in Thailand is quite strong. Is that your experience?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/...-Thai-buy.html

Alan2005

Personally I wouldn't touch any kind of "investment" property in Thailand; mainly because the king is quite frail these days and who knows what will happen after his death with the social divisions that exist there. I'd only buy (in as much as you can) for somewhere to actually live.

bakedbean

I suspect the point of the article was to boost sales for Knight Frank.

There was certainly a bit of borrocks in the article. Quote "land prices have doubled here in the past ten years, translating into healthy returns for foreign investors" Well... sorry... foreigners cannot own land. Sure you can set up a company with Thai directors but that is fraught with problems I am led to believe.

Thailand and the Thai market is strange, especially for those living outside Thailand. Strange things go on. The Thai baht just goes up and up over the years. The government keeps it propped up and they have loads of dosh.

We have a house we are selling. We are selling for less than we bought it. It's a bargain (crafty plug... cheers Sue). But fact is if we ever get to sell the flipping place and if we were to convert the baht into sterling.... well, we'd be winners. It's a funny old world.

I had a chat with a couple of our more intelligent property agents. (There are some real crooks out there, believe you me.) And it is true that the High End properties are still moving. And I'm talking real big bucks 100 million baht. That's well over 2 million sterling I believe. But you can get some real gorgeous villas, beautiful sea views and sunsets if you like that sort of thing. Why do the likes of Bill Gates, the Beckhams invest out there? You think they're worried about HM King passing on?**

I gather Russian buyers are the biggest investors currently. It's somewhere to shove your money and no tax to pay on death.

And so much uncertainty elsewhere in the world. Slightly off topic but I was reading the other day about the Greeks. Apparently bucket loads of Euros have been taken out of the Greek banks there. I don't blame them. Euro is seriously dodgy. So what to do with it? Convert it to another currency and buy property. Apparently that's what they are doing. Quite a lot going into UK. But 10 years ago, Euro was looking like a good investment, right?

Just note to Alan, I've never bought any property for investment purposes. Just to live in. If it makes money, great (most of them have). If it loses money, mai bpen rai (Sue: that's Never Mind)

nonthaburi

I'm going by where I live which is in the suburbs of BKK and things are fairly static. A glut of houses in the 2-4 million range and new ones being built all the time as BKK keeps on expanding. Why buy second hand when you can buy new for the same price. I bought land and built upcountry for my retirement , land up there has doubled in the past ten years and so have the building costs as well for the materials. We are planning to make an extension at some point so asre considering buying materials nowish for the future years down the line. Guess a lot of that is just general inflation though. Maybe in some areas things are moving but I don't think that is the case everywhere. Everywhere is different though. Not sure what will happen to the market in my area because no one knows what is going to happen with flooding now too. I would be worried about buying a second hand car now that's for sure

bakedbean

The resale market has always been tricky though mostly driven by prop agents who just push the new properties with bigger commissions for them.totally different in Penang where there's a healthy resale market