Darrel

Gold is about as viable as Pattaya condos. They are both items that are bought and sold at prices that bear little or no relation to their intrinsic worth, with prices that go up and down with every change of the wind.

As for "investing" in something that people with no brain wear around their necks for show, this seems to be totally daft. Why not invest in plastic beads too?

One hell of a good investment, that one. It's nearly worth what it was 30 years ago.

The farang-name units in VT3 and VT5 are long gone. Some Thai-name units remain (and will probably do so forever).

VT7 still has farang-name units for sale from the developer but they are not nice, as previously mentioned. There are legal issues also.

Many farang-name units left in VT8, due to the location I suspect. The developer prices are not low either, and in fact you can buy resale shells for less than the developer asking price (I saw one that was 30% less than the developer asking price).

One of the reasons that a lot of the sold units in those buildings are dark is that they have been bought by speculators with money to spare, with a view to either being rented out or resold. As they ask too high prices for resale not much happens to them, and rentors come and go with the seasons. As there are no property ownership taxes here it only costs a few thousand Baht per year in maintenance to own one of those units, so there is no incentive to sell fast or even to rent out fast. There are a lot of people who own many units each in those buildings (and others). Personally I think they are mad, but regardless of that they do distort the market hugely. If all those units came on the market priced to sell, asking prices would halve overnight and only then would they be at a reasonable level.

These speculators are directly responsible for the over-inflated asking prices one sees at the moment.

You may have a special reason for wanting to use BB (who apparently are not the easiest to open an account with). If so, and if there is a branch of BB in the group of banks in Central Festival (I think there is), then I suspect it may be easier in that branch than in some others, simply due to the huge number of farangs using the building. I suspect that bank branches there may be faster at producing bank letters also, for the same reason.

If you arent especially tied to BB then I would recommend a branch of K-Bank as most farangs find they are the easiest to open an account with. I opened mine very easily in Central Festival (which must have the world's best banking hours) but there is a big branch on Jomtien Beach Rd also, not far from Soi Immigration, and one in the Avenue that is pretty efficient.

Where you here in July 1997 when the baht crashed? ..........................

That's one reason I don't really want to keep megabaht in my bank........................

Then there's the question of showing your bank book to indicated movement of money into Thailand and the ins and outs monthly to indicate use.......................

Exchange rate movements can strike either way. Some people would have done well by depositing 800KB 2 years ago (anyone from the UK for example).

800KB is hardly a huge amount. However I expect that the amounts for both deposit and income will be increased sigificantly as soon as the powers that be think they dont need the cheapest of the cheap retirees any more (it happened in New Zealand and Malaysia).

As far as I know there is no requirement to actually spend the 800KB, just a requirement to have it. If you have it then as far as I know you dont need to show any movement or expenditure (yet).

What are you crapping on about ?!

For anyone to say such a thing, especially hidden by forum anonymity, is just a waste of space. You have no authority, and present no data. So, .. get lost.

And your authority for telling others what to do comes from where? This place is full of opinions, and I gave mine just as you gave yours. The only difference being that I didnt tell anyone what to do, nor did I launch into any name-calling of anyone here.

Didn't notice any "data" being presented about these brilliant expats either. I doubt that there is any, as of course that post was just opinion without authority also. I suppose you didn't notice that.

Thanks for the suggestions. Not sure that I'm exactly suited to a "trendy" area but it certainly gives me something to think about.

A very quick search revealed quite a few decent-looking studios in Hillside 4 available for around 10,000B.

The night market seems to be some distance from that area though: well over 3km if I read Google Maps correctly.

In fact, I am in Australia just now and am amazed at the incompetent fools I run into here every single day. Especially those running the country and local governments.

I would agree with you about them, but I wasn't actually drawing any comparisons between those who are here and those who stayed behind. It was the notion of a select group of Phuket expatriate intelligentsia that caught my attention, compared to the ones that I have come across.

no insult intended.

No problem. Plenty of others here do intend their insults, none of which will be causing me to lose any sleep at all.

I bet your first on everyone's list of 'must have' dinner guests

Haha. One of the things I came here to avoid is dinner parties and of course they are an integral part of the equally dull social ladder that was previously recommended.

(And it's "you're" not "your".)

"kau pad muu + tom yum kung + 0.33 bottle fanta = more 200 THB"

Do you not check the prices before ordering? I know places here where you would spend over 200B on this, and I also know places nearby where it would cost half that.

Russians are buying like there is no tomorrow believe me

Just because Russians are insane doesn't mean that everyone else has to lose their minds also.

I see Russians happily buying places that I wouldn't give a second glance at, due to the crappy locations. They, however, seem to be pleased with anything just as long as it's cheap.

Are there many buyers apart from Russians and the perennial "flippers", I wonder?

I've also been trying to work out what would be a nice area to rent in for a while (or to buy in for that matter), but I certainly wont be paying 30K or anywhere near it.

I would like to be no more than 30 minutes walk from the night market (or similar area with a bit of life), or be on a regular bahtbus route to get to the centre easily and cheaply. Not interested at all in taking tuktuks, motorbike taxis, chartered bahtbuses, dog sleds, wheelchairs, roller-skates etc.

I would also like to have a decent view (decent being a river or mountains or some greenery, but not a view of the next-door condo or local karaoke bar).

Not bothered about big shopping centres or Western food or beer bars or nightclubs, but would like a good selection of cheap Thai eating places nearby, and also to be in an area that is nice/interesting to walk around in. I do a lot of walking.

Any suggestions? I've been wondering about the Riverside condo, the Chang Klan area, and also the Hillside buildings previously mentioned, but I'm not sure about the area surrounding those.

Isn't it simpler just to deposit the 800KB in the bank?

The notion of paying my consulate several thousand Baht just to rubber-stamp a letter is so alien to me that I would go to almost any lengths to avoid it, and depositing the 800K takes care of that too.

move up the next step of the ladder on the social scale.

Not sure that I want to, thanks! I've had a guided tour and it seems to me the higher you go here the better the view of someone else's behind.

Not my scene at all, but those who like it are welcome to it.

Classy up-market tourism.

The Russian guy is probably currently haggling about the value of the chain with the police.

The situation is that our building use to house many Japanese executives who last year got

Their marching order to pack up and head back home

That is something of a niche market. Japan has some of the world's most expensive "ordinary" property so everything outside Japan looks absurdly cheap, and Japanese companies probably pay incredibly high wages and expenses also. No real surprise that if that dries up there is no one around to replace them at the same prices.

"Is It A Way To Earn Money By Doing Nothing?"

There really is one born every minute, isnt there?

"Permanent residency applicants, many of them from Phuket, represent the best and brightest of Thailand’s expatriate community."

Not sure that's saying much. Most foreigners I've seen working here are pretty incompetent (I doubt anyone would employ them in the West, which I suppose is why they are here) and anyone retired here presumably doesnt need to bother about permanent residency anyway.

Maybe there's some other group of sparkling expats that I have yet to encounter.

If there's one thing that I learnt living in areas that are thunder-prone is that with the first rumble you disconnect EVERYTHING from the power sockets, also (and above all) the phone connections for ADSL and you dont plug them back in until ALL the thunder has gone away.

Any other procedure is crass stupidity.

Ohhhh, I don't know. How about some absurd unbelievable reason like the farang was selling a desirable unit? A corner unit, a unit on the "cool side" of the building, on a high floor, or some such.

Maybe for *you* price is everything, and you "would just buy one of the cheaper Thai or company name units," but perhaps some folks -- including Thais -- do have other criteria and standards. Just a wild & crazy concept I'll throw out for consideration.

Actually I'm a very fussy property buyer. Price is NOT everything for me (in fact it's way down the list) but what I have noticed is that there is always another better unit for sale in the same building or the one next door (and often for much less, especially if it isnt in farang name).

I will bet a large sum that Thai buyers would know this, and would not pay over the top for a unit in farang name. They might buy a farang name unit in a building where the name comes with no premium, and these buildings certainly exist, but of course if the farang quota isnt full then there is no problem with any farang buying any unit.

I suppose that a very wealthy Thai might just buy a particular 20Mb unit in a particular building if he had so much money that he reallly didnt care what he paid, but that would be in some very particular circumstances, and certainly not in the run of the mill type building that one sees every day, with units at 2, 3, 5, 7Mb. And even there, no matter how good that particular farang name unit is, there will probably be another unit on the same floor with the same view that is in Thai name.

I have never come across this happening though and I doubt that anyone else here has either. I anyone has I would like to hear the details.

Pratumnak is definatly the place to invest.

I would say it is the place to avoid. It is destined to become a concrete jungle with buildings going up on every bit of green land. There is no proper public transport: you have to take your chances with the motorbike taxi mafia, or a chartered bahtbus, or walk for miles. Anyone buying there can count on daily pile-driving for the next 10 years and the probable loss of any view they may have once had of the sea or a green leaf. And quite how "cosy" the beach will be when it has a million Russians on it, I dont know.

I think that you are going off-topic

Soi Bua Khao was a dirt track pre -1990

It was indeed. I remember Pattaya well, back when there was Beach Rd, 2nd Rd, and that was it!

Obviously it wasnt the good old days for Buakow but it was the good old days for the whole town.

I'm looking for VOIP in Thailand that can supply me with a Thai number.

I'm curious as to why? Are you expecting to get many calls from within Thailand? In that case why not use a mobile number like everyone else?

If you are getting calls from outside Thailand (as I do) then you probably would do better with a VOIP-in number that is located in the country where most of your contacts are, in order to keep costs down for them. I have several in three different countries.

Therefore new tenant is using satellite phone, IPSTAR internet service and Skype, all to get free international Skype calls (mostly to UK). All of this costing between 3,000 to 9,000Baht a month

Wow! Rather him than me. Not exactly "free" either.

I would investigate 3G or that wifi service that is transmitted from the top of Jomtien Complex or somewhere around there. Either will cost many times less than a satellite service and will probably work far better.

And for that price I would have thought that you/he could just use a mobile phone on a cheap tariff, or a mobile phone using VOIP callback.

Personally if I was paying two subs a month to get some back up I would want two lines, two modems and a load-balancing router. That would be worth having.

i have all that but never got the crap working

You were probably trying to use two routers together. This isnt easy and will only work if you follow the instructions given by Supernova (method 1 is by far the best).

A much easier solution is to use one router (the load-balancing one) and two modems. Or possibly one load-balancing modem/router and one modem. Both of these solutions require hardly any configuration at all.

The Skate sounds nice. Hopefully it will be priced the same way as the Blade.

Anyone thinking of buying a Blade should be aware that it seems the most recent models (only distributed since a couple of days ago) are not as easy to unlock or flash as the earlier models. It can still be done though, apparently.