palm

It was said here: "Harmonica has given the best advice i've read on this thread."

Harmonica stated in early 2005 (in this thread):

So, to reiterate my position -- we have now established that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, the world's #2 and #1 richest men are LEADING the HERD of wildebeast BEARISH the Dollar and selling, selling, selling!!!!! On the flip side, there is me, little Harmonica, with not even a porcelain pot to piss in wink.gif and I'm saying BUY, BUY, BUY the US Dollar bigtime and put it under the mattress and retire to Thailand! smile.gif

Another plain example of why strategic financial investment decisions are best not done on the advice of tuktuk drivers, noodle sellers, and beggars.

Hello Palm,

Can you give us a hard source for your figures please? Or did you use the word 'probably' cause you are making a guess?

Please go take a look at Watermark, Millennium Residence, the Met, Empire Place, Pano (these guys are in trouble partly due to their inconvenient location). I did last month, and most are not even close to 70% sold out. That's a fact.

Your source please for this 'fact'? The taxi driver who took you there; or the company management themselves?

If it's a fact, what % are sold? Is it a 'specific' % you have? Or an 'estimate'? Or a guess-timate? And where did you get the data from please?

Funny how you claim Thai's don't buy luxury condos - my condo on the river is 90% owned by Thai people with big Mercedes, even a few Porches, one old Ferrari and even and old Rolls - all owned by Thais! Or maybe they bought them all on credit or Daddy's money and its a mirage?

Please let me know which luxury condo's are offering large discounts for cash right now, and I'll go see them. My budget for a couple of condos here is about 6m to 10m for a small size one, but can stretch to 15m+ if there is a great bargain to be had.

Not trying to be rude here, but every time I ask for examples of luxury condo's being offered for huge discounts, I get no replies. Sorry that such a basic question seems to rub many people up the wrong way, but when I spend quite large sums of money, I tend to look for facts rather than bitter falangs who give the impression they can't afford to buy these high-end places and bitch and moan as a result.

... then many of the projects have sold probably around just 40-60%. With this in mind, I hearby declare the original poster is "LivingInDenial".

Can you give us a hard source for your figures please? Or did you use the word 'probably' cause you are making a guess?

I am still looking for Grade A condos being offered at 20%- 25% discounts for cash, over 2006 prices? Anyone know of any?

If someone holds a tainted view of the luxury condo market based on the fact that they can't afford to buy one, why can't they just be a grown-up and come out and say so?

more proof condo market is not booming.......

Housing loans drops in 1st quarter, says GHB chief

Kan Prachuabmoh, the bank’s president, said GHB earned a net profit of 309 million baht in the first-quarter performance, down from 880 million baht in the same quarter last year.

http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=29170

Can you yourself actually afford to purchase one of these 10m+ baht condos in Bangkok?

We know you wouldn't buy one, but maybe the reason is you simply can't afford to?

Failing strong regional alliances, countries, like Thailand will unfortunately remain at risk.

we are facing the opposite in what hedge funds and big speculators like Soros were and are still interested, namely the interesting fact that a currency [THB] is not really vulnerable but shows an unwanted strength. that not only offshore but also onshore. speculators have never been interested in undue strengths of "tiny" currencies like THB because no big gains can be expected. for THB in 1997 and GBP in 1992 the situation was in favour of big gains for the speculators as the BOT and the BOE tried frantically to defend their currencies by buying whatever the shorters threw on the market.

the strength of THB contributes only a fraction to what is now called "Thai economy is in crisis". assuming there is a crisis (which i don't believe) then it is most probably a normal occurence of business cycles. after boom in many cases bust follows.

funnily each and everything negative happening nowadays is blamed on the military government. that the economy cooled down, the Baht strengthened, the visa regulations were [planned] to tighten, the issue of foreign landownership... all happened or was initiated when Thaksin was still in full power as the little emperor of Thailand.

lol, why let a few good facts (that you've given) get in the way of an argument

Harmonica has given the best advice i've read on this thread.

Is this the same guy who said the Thai Baht exchange would now be at 50 baht to the dollar.

And the same guy who claimed to live in a 5,000 baht rented apartment and eat out of cans?

I asked this question earlier in the thread and got zero replies. Maybe the second time is a charm. There is a lot of discussion about investors buying units in the luxury condos in Bangkok and getting stuck. This is not why we bought our unit, but out of curiosity, typically just how many (what %) of a Bangkok luxury condos units are actually owned by investors looking to flip them as soon as possible?

Yes, I'd like to know some real statistics too on these so-called flippers - but where are they?

Where I live, the percentage is well under 2%. (sold empty condos for resale - prices 8m to 24m)

I'd like to know why people are saying such negative things about luxury condos in Bangkok?

Is it that these doom and gloom people:

- can't afford one themselves? at least not without putting their entire net worth into one?

- believe if a luxury condo development is practically sold out, it means really they are not sold out at all?

- grab a statistic and use it as a sweeping generalisation for the entire condo market?

- can't get to grips with the idea that property in Bangkok is still dirt cheap compared to most major cities with something decent to offer a foreigner (i.e. great shopping, nightlife, restaurants, etc)

- have had some hard luck in Thailand (either financially or with a girl) and are lashing out at why anyone would purchase something in Thailand?

- are peeved that many Thais earn far more than them, and so can't accept the fact that a Thai can possibly afford to buy a luxury condo so must be borrowing to flip it.

I'd sure like to see real physical hard evidence of the luxury condo market being in a 'depression'. (i.e. no sales, or sales going for a 20%+ off of the market price) - so far no one has given ANY WHATSOEVER.

I like the food at Tia Maria, because it is home style and fresh, not restaurant style.

The refried beans appear to be mashed by hand, not come from a can.

The enchilada sauce seems home-made, again, not from a can.

The Spanish rice seems to have bits of fresh tomatoes, not dried tomatoes from a food-service package.

The taco shells are crisp and warm and seem to be freshly heated, rather than just taken out of a plastic package.

All of that, and more, is what keeps me returning to Tia Maria.

The flavours and spices are mild by Mexican standards, and that suits me just fine.

But at every meal, five different hot sauces are provided for those who like more heat.

Yep, that's what I found too. It's home style and fresh.

The restaurant just badly needs a refurbish.

The articles that you post here give the readers a far more accurate picture of what is going on in the Thai economy than the plethera of posts from the rose colored glasses brigade, many of whom actually think that the strong Thai baht is a good thing and an indicator of a strong Thai economy.

Can you please give us some examples of these posters who have actually said this?

I really got to say, this is what makes me *not* read the news and listen to the media. It's a bunch of rubbish. Look at the title: Microsoft admits Vista failure. Microsoft did no such thing. This should have been enough to make people stop reading the bull that's printed. When the prices of LCDs TVs lower, is it a failure? When the stores sell anything other than LCDs, is the LCD a failure?

The gall of this sad man is enormous. It is really really frightening that some people have actually ingested all of his drivel and *believed* it. He's an example of a journalist who will write any lie, just as long as it's sensational and sells. Ethics, schmethics.

and Microsoft's profits are WAY UP this quarter:

"Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, said third-quarter earnings rose 65 percent on sales of its new Windows and Office programs. The shares advanced after the company said revenue may top analysts' estimates next fiscal year. Net income climbed to $4.93 billion, or 50 cents a share, from $2.98 billion, or 29 cents, a year ago, beating the 46-cent average projection of 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales increased 32 percent to $14.4 billion, the company said today. " Bloomberg April 26.

I totally agree LP. Ridiculous public statements from one as eminent and admirable

as this gentleman should be greeted by an embarassed silence and unseemly sniggers

should be suppressed.

BTW Having once seen a vending machine in France offering "female condoms" (and

not having the change to satisfy my curiosity) I now see "oral condoms" added to the

list. Anybody any idea what these are. My interest is , of course , strictly prurient.

Oral condoms are supposed to be used by both male and female, -for safe sex-, performing oral sex, whatever the gender.

LaoPo

Are they mint flavored?

Anyone tried the curry-flavour, body-condom?

I'm going on the record as saying it is workable.

I wonder though how much of Thai's decrease in market share was due to the move and how much is it due to their uncompetitive offering compared to both LCC's and other regional airlines. Thai airways is a bit of a clunky, government owned enterprise where the board membership is a sought after prize by many civil servants as a reward which keeps on giving (free first class travel) even after you've left the board.

It'll take time (forward planning isn't a huges strength of any government), but Don Muang is an excellent regional alternative. Given Suvanabhumi is near capacity already, the last thing a govermnent needs to spend money on is capital expansion when it has a perfectly good asset sitting down the road. Although it may well have been poltical, I challenge anyone to say that it was a fiscally irresponsible to utlise existing assets before building new ones.

But hey, people want to splash money around like old Thaksin, then they should run at the next elections.

I flew to Phitsanulok for the day last week from Don Muang (with Thai Airways),and it was great - no mass scrum at check-in, or hoards of people milling about. And the flight was full, there and back.

Thai Airways should stop moaning, and become more competitive on their short haul routes. They charge more for a 40min domestic inland flight, than other airlines charge to HK and SG!

We're looking for some Thai staff. Not admin/office staff, but ppl who can sew, produce fabric patterns etc.

I know there is a magazine full of emplyoment ads, but it seems to be mostly for office staff. Does anyone have any suggestions for other publication/methods for finding staff.

Thanks!

My girl is looking for 20+ more staff now too, and the glossy job mags tend to get you designers and pattern-makers, but little response from 'quality ground-level sewing staff'.

She tends to get the good staff she already has to ask around, offering them a nice bonus if they can find good quality people who will stick at a job for more than 2 weeks. Seems to work so far, though a bit too slowly for my liking.

If you go to Pratunam or Baiyoke, it seems like every other shop is also looking for sewing staff. They pin ads on their shop fronts.

Vansana

Thats really use info - any idea what their systems cost?

The other system which is marketed in thailand is a PV system made by Grundfos - but it is not cheap running into several hundred thousand Baht

Would like to know how this ocmpares pricewise - performance wise it's not quite up to Grudfos spec, but it sure looks impressive for what it is and I would think it's going to be far more cost effective then Grundfos

MF

I was at Leonics yesterday in Bangkok, and they have a borehole pump made by LORENTZ (a PS600 HR/C) that is designed to work with solar (48V DC). I need to pump about 140m deep, so the setup I am looking at is quite expensive, but Leonics seem to offer a lot of more general solutions too.

The guy I met there really knew his stuff and showed dozens of real solar-based projects in Thailand.

A picture tells a thousand words.

Taken from Chong Nonsi BTS 15th April, 2007.

I rest my case.

rofl

and you fell for it

Seems to me a lot of posters just cannot afford to buy high quality condos in Bangkok and are miffed that either others can, or are trying to talk themselves into thinking maybe if they whine enough, the developers will give them a huge discount?

I am looking to buy 2 more condos in Bangkok with cash, and I haven't had a single developer offer me any significant discount for cash. My budget is 6 to 10m each. These are not buy to rent, but another one for me, and one for one of my staff.

If you don't think The Infinity has sold out - call them and ask to buy one for cash.

LASIK

I am about 55 yrs old, I am tired of wearing bifocal glasses all the time specially while playing golf and I am sweating so it becomes a pain wiping out the sweat from glasses all the time. I am thinking whether LASIK is a good idea ? I hear I do not have to wear the glasses all the time if I correct the distant vision.

I have heard of two hospitals in BKK Thailand ; RUTIN Eye Hospital and TRSC International LASIK Center, can somebody who has done it let me know which is the best place and probable cost ?

Salim

Dhaka

Do some careful research - LASIK is not a perfect technique and many people do have problems with it. Do a search on Google for lasik and disaster etc.

Another type of solution is micro-surgery - the one where they cut the white of the eye 8 times using the laser (which means the actual top of your eye is not sliced off!).

Thimktoomut, you omitted to include the location and name of this development that you are now renting.

Without this information your post means nothing....

Yeah?

You want me to give name and address while you are showing a pie in the sky?

Yeah, come on and tell us what luxury condo you are renting and in what part of Bangkok it is.

Are you spending 5,000 baht a month? 50,000 a month? Or 100,000 a month on rent?

They might be building plenty but nobody is buying.............that's my take on the article. not surprised

If you find any of the prime new condos suddenly offering big discounts to get sales, you let me know

My Thai project manager was just quoted 120,000 baht for:

9" bore-hole

up to 100m deep (they said 50-70m is probably what we'll end up needing)

including submersible pump and motor etc

screw-together tubing

10% deposit

40% on completion and working after a few weeks

remaining 50% after 12 months if everything is still ok

will take about 10 to 20 days to do unless they hit a ton of granite (same price, their hard luck)

Location is Phitsnulok. Seems quite a fair deal to me?

I have about 120 rai to supply, and new lakes to build/fill etc.

Well the borehole is finished and working great. In the end, they went down 142 METRES!

They came with a huge truck with the big drill platform on the back, and with 11 staff and worked for about 20 hrs a day, for about 5 days.

We have a 1.5 HP motor etc and we are getting fresh, crystal-clear water.

We had to get a license at the local authority place, as we are pumping on a 'commercial scale', but it was only about 7,000 baht or something.

Here we go....I've got a nice HP lapop with 512 RAM and a 40 GB HDD and a Sampron 3100 proz running Win XP pro. The system is about one year old.

The computer appears very very slow. I downloaded some of Monty's wonderful tools, namely crapcleaner, Eusing registry cleaner and Advaced Windows Cleaner. They all found some stuff and nuked it, but the before/after effect was close to zero. Also booting up the laptop takes almost five minutes until the HDD light is off and everything loaded.

Opening a file by double-clicking it in the explorer window prompting to start up Open Office takes almost a minute until the file is open. On the office computer (also 512 MB RAM) it takes seconds.

At the moment, there are 55 processes running, with nine open programs. There is one process called "system" that takes some CPU performance but only 64K memory. Highest rank in the memory is Firefox with 85 MB but only two tabs open. Makes me wonder a bit, actually. The famous svchost is running six times.

I run AntiVir Guard, and Copernic Desktop Search in the background.

Does anybody has an idea how to fix that?

1. Try running MSCONFIG.EXE and choose the [startup] tab. Scroll down the list to see and remove lots of startup junk that is not required - such as Acrobat, RealScheduler, Gamma, Office QuickLaunch, etc etc - you might find a LOT of stuff in your list, and some of it could hog a huge amount of resources and startup time. Use Google etc to search for program names you don't recognise etc.

On my system, I have 29 out of the 34 items in the list disabled and my Windows boots up very quickly. Obviously, keep your anti-virus software loading at startup.

2. Increase your RAM if possible to 1GB at least - Windows can run like a dog with 512MB of RAM. I use 2GB myself.

ain't no such thing as 'good mexican food' outside of East LA so get used to a closest substitute...

someone said that Senor Picos at the Rembrandt was acceptable but I say no...it is junk and a disgrace to mexican cuisine worldwide...Senor Pico is a worldwide chain... there was an outlet near my place in Bahrain...sum folks seem to think that 'fajitas' represent the best that mexican cuisine has to offer...bullshed...never heard of 'fajitas' except in the last 20 years. The test of a restaurant was always how they did their chiles rellenos...

there is large scope for an enterprising individual to set up a GOOD mexican restaurant in BKK, but I don't see it happening in my lifetime...

Actually the food at Tia Maria's is good (and I lived in SE Mexico on and off for a few years, so have some experience). The margaritas are nice too. If only the place wasn't such a dump. It's certainly much tastier food than Coyote's and SenorPico's fast-food style.

And, of course, we must remember that all these nominal Buddhists seem to be completely ignorant of His teaching that ALL life should be respected.

Yesterday's Bangkok Post was suggesting that Animism should be the official religion!

Did anyone else see that piece on Thai TV about 10 days ago about a Thai restaurant that cooks the fish alive etc - there didn't seem to be any mention of it being cruel, it was more a discussion about the taste. The fish were being fried and eaten alive (all flapping about) , it was quite sick.

Hi Palm, you should be able to get a machine and operator on a monthly price, excluding fuel, for around 120,000 baht, fuel for a month can cost anywhere up to another 120,000 baht (500 baht per hour seems to work well).

You say 30,000 baht a day, well no one pays that, not if they can connect with firms like mine anyway, and there are lots of us around, (I also have seen these prices printed and quoted, thats why I started up this firm).

Be careful what you buy with your budget, I used to go to the auctions, with that amount you will have a very big choice of crap, if you can up it to around 1.5, you should get a good machine. Komatsu and Kat are the best, but with Kat's you pay for the name, designer digger if you like also with Komatsu's, early models suffer from over heating/warped heads so check the oil for traces of water (milky resadue inside oil filler cap), this problem was sorted out on late MkV's and onwards. Hitachi's are ok but don't stand up to the every day wear and tear as well as the two mentioned, I believe Kabelco are also a good make, good strong machine, but Komatsu are no.1 for strength, reliability, cost and of course resale.

If you find a good one, PM me when your done with it, I'm always in the market for good machines. Although I much prefer to buy new.

Thanks for all the advice. I think I'll end up buying one - the price isn't really an issue; and as I would look to sell it again after using it. I guess buying a better quality digger, the easier it is to re-sell. But I'll do my homework and try not to screw it all up

I was just surprised at the 30,000 baht a day quotes when I saw so many large excavators sitting around idle in Phitsanulok. But I really need a large one to maintain the 5km of road we built, plus many other things.

problem i see with property in thailand is that you have to pay cash upfront. If you just keep that money liquid and have it invested in a some low risk or no risk places you should get atleast 5%/year. I think rents in Thailand hoover around the 5% of unit cost anually...

I just dont see thailand as a good place 'to invest' money, but if you are planning to live here long term, then I dont see that much downside to buying.

Personally, I plan to keep my money liquid and have the choice to move around the country/city at my will and not have any big worries like what happens when I have to deal with thai insurance agents

Getting a 5% return a year on stashing cash in the bank is not 'investing' - it is 'breaking-even'.

In BKK, nothing should cost more than 500-600US$ per sqm. The developers know their workforce work like cattle and live and sleep like cattle.

I can see some of the dreamers selling (before they have to face the cost) their places for 2000US$ sqm. Let them dream.

Sheesh - since WHEN did the cost of building a property have ANYTHING to do with its real estate price in a modern major city?

Do you think the sky-high-price developments in Shanghai are built by workers earning $600 a day?