yoshiwara

Top floor and direct afternoon sun? You are cooking man!

Some Lawyer said foreigner are not allow to buy land here.They said to me that I can buy a land under Thai limited company name but if the company is established only for land buying purpose, then I will get problem in the future.

It sounds like you have met an honest lawyer in Thailand. I'm very impressed.

Loads of people with a vested interest (estate agents, lawyers, developers. builders, people with houses to sell) will tell you that as a foreigner you can own houses and land, and they will describe convoluted semi-legal schemes that will give the appearance of allowing you to do so. My personal opinion is that one day these schemes will probably come back and bite them in the bum.

The only property you can own outright in your name in complete legality is a farang-quota condo. You can own a house and lease the land it's on, but of course this isnt property ownership and as you rightly say the lease may not last as long as you might like it to.

Now if there were proper, legal, official 99-year leases that could be sold on then that would be a totally different story and even I might be prepared to buy a house under such circumstances. But there is no such animal.

The lawyer advice above is as straight as it gets. More than one Thai minister has opined in the past that legal structures constructed to evade the spirit of the law are not safe. The OP should be under no misapprehension that he is taking zero risk by going the company route to purchase a house. The key argument on the other side is that a government will never act to revoke the existing foreign owned company houses as they do not have the resources to carry out such a policy and there is too much money invested ie it will be bad for Thailand. Well on the resources front the government does not have to check up on all company ownerships. All they have to do is instruct the land registry to refuse to register any future company ownerships with a foreigner on the share ownership list. Can be done overnight. And then how much will your house worth?

After the small dead-cat bounce last week, gold has slumped back firmly into bear market territory and the ropes dragging it down with the Euro are still there.

In the immediate term if the Euro crisis deepens the trend for gold will be down and the trend for the $US will be up. Time for some religious incantations.

I cant imagine the us dollar being a 'safe haven' as the country has huge trillions of debt and is going down the toilet

It certainly is at the moment. Nothing to stop you being a tart and flitting about later. Its a toilet with gold-plated taps right now.

Yoshiware,

What's the return on investment (monthly rent/purchase price) for a studio in HK? what's the appreciation of the property over a year?.

What are the tax like for property investment there? any special taxes imposed on foreigners?.

TIA

I would expect an initial ROI an investment should be 4-5%.

Broadly speaking the market is divided into 3 areas: HK Island, Kowloon and New Territories. HK Island is the more expensive and within that there are different definable areas. Mid-levels is the fashionable area. If you are looking for cheaper stuff in a good area, then Urbana 38 in Sheung Wan is one option. The apartments have balconies. They sell for 2.7 million to 2.9 million HKD. Size 360 sf. That's gross not net BTW. That's between 7500-8000hkd psf. Currently you would get ~ 12,000 HKD rental per month.

Prices in this price range just creep up.

Tax is less than 20%. I think 17%. There is an additional tax if you sell within 2 years of purchase. There are no special taxes on foreigners and no restrictions on foreign ownership. Everything for sale! All documents for sale and purchase and rental are written in both English and Chinese.

http://goo.gl/maps/zdSD

http://hk.centadata....PA&info=&page=0

http://www.gohome.com.hk/en/

After several attempts to access your accounts (3) the accounts may lock and your password no longer valid. If that is the case then the bank may only offer to send you a replacement password and/or card only to your registered account address. If that is so you are screwed if your address is in Thailand. I would consider going to the Bangkok Bank in London and asking for assistance.

Stirling is looking very good now. It may last a while too considering all the greek cr*p going on.

Leave it in stirling as it will strengthen over the short term. Change to another currency like the Singapore dollar not the baht, it (the baht) is not a good bet considering the political stability of this country.

During the current Euro uncertainty SGD is weakening against USD.

In the article it is interesting to contrast the views of Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, chairman of TCC Holding and that of Piti Bhirombhakdi, regional marketing director for Singha Corp. The chairman is likely to have a better view of where the business is going. He is positive. A regional marketing director (third? fourth? tier) has a more limited perspective. {snip}

You don't really know who Piti is, do you? Does the family name ring a bell?

I don't.

After the small dead-cat bounce last week, gold has slumped back firmly into bear market territory and the ropes dragging it down with the Euro are still there.

In the immediate term if the Euro crisis deepens the trend for gold will be down and the trend for the $US will be up. Time for some religious incantations.

gold and silver sold off today...just like last Tuesday, and the Tuesday before that, and the Tuesday before that, and the Tuesday before that...........

So I guess you are selling every Monday late afternoon and buying back on Tuesday late afternoons?

Prior to the IPO there was extensive discussion on CNBC of the FB income stream. FB supporters said that there were so many FB users that if only 10% of users accessed the ads, there would be a boom. So the sale was on a promise of potential and shareholders were in practice buying eyeballs. That was a warning. The blaming of Morgan Stanley is a sideshow on what has happened to the price. Yesterday options opened up on FB and the price has dropped to below 29. For those who are in for the long haul, the possible purchase of Opera would be very good news. It is an excellent search engine.

How likely is it for Greeks for vote to have their savings , property .. devalued by 60% ..

I think they will vote a party to keep Greece in the Euro ..

Which means death by 1000 cuts ....

most voters are dumb sheeple. they might fall for demagogues like Tsipras who promises "no austerity, business as usual, life is good, we'll keep on dancing Sirtaki after our siestas whether Merkel likes it or not!"

It is not their savings they will be worrying about. Those they will probably have stashed away somewhere. What they have to deal with as an immediate threat is the prospect of public sector incomes and public sector pensions being paid in new Drachmas. Tsipras has no answer to that one except ' They won't dare!'. So now the Greek electorate is faced with their Dirty Harry question.

After the small dead-cat bounce last week, gold has slumped back firmly into bear market territory and the ropes dragging it down with the Euro are still there.

In the immediate term if the Euro crisis deepens the trend for gold will be down and the trend for the $US will be up. Time for some religious incantations.

based on Iceland's experience that might not be a bad thing

Iceland is not a country. it's a remote island on which fewer inhabitants live than in one of Bangkok's suburbs.

its quality not quantity... at least this small group had backbone

To up welfare payments. The Greek Radical Left Party will be as excited as you about that one.

What I would be interested in is the projected ratio between cash and debt and the sources of the debt. Anything?

No. A child may not assume any legal liability.

Hong Kong ? London ?

Having experience in both markets, there is a slight cost differential between them and Thai property.

Invest in the East,

Yes, that is true, the buy in is a lot more expensive, but much safer. But if one is above the line of affordability a good choice if you know your way around.

I would also recommend Singapore but that is even more expensive and there is now a 10% foreigner purchase tax, so scrub that one.

If I only had 1.2 millionHKD (5 million baht) I would still rather borrow another 1.2 million to buy a studio in HK.

If I only had 2.5/3 million baht to invest and no hope to invest in HK, would I purchase a property in Thailand? For investment? No.

Just from the outside, although of boring design, the View Talay buildings look to be of a higher quality than some of the newer mini-blocks coming on to the market.

OP is interetsed in villas, not condominiums......

ahhh yes.

A child cannot buy or sell a property. However, a child's legal interests can be represented through for example a trust.

Is there any indication where the cash from the straight cash offer originates?

isn't PTT 51% state owned?

That's disgusting.

I think you have to decide whether you want to prioritise diversifying your currency exposure or earning interest.

"GRexit" = hopefully soon! rather an end with terror than terror without an end. ah sez "let them go down the drain and default on their recently restructured debt!" even though all of us with substantial assets will face considerable [book]losses due to global paranoia and risk aversion.

You might be disappointed for some time if the polls move further towards the Coalition Parties and continued dissembling. Maybe it is slowly permeating the thick heads of Greek public sector employees that they might be paid in new Drachmas.

and based on Iceland's experience that might not be a bad thing

Welcome to the Currency War, Part 1: Iceland and the Tragedy of the Commons

So regardless of whether the eurozone dissolves or endures, devaluation is the centerpiece policy. Either the drachma, peseta and lira are revived at a 50% discount, or the euro is devalued by a similar amount. There’s no sound-currency solution to all this debt.

and i know Yoshiwara that you will not like the last 3 words of this article....

http://dollarcollaps...of-the-commons/

You should have read the article before posting. It suggests that part of Iceland's success is due to imposing capital controls and increasing welfare payments. Both of which you are no doubt in favour of. Yes?

Just from the outside, although of boring design, the View Talay buildings look to be of a higher quality than some of the newer mini-blocks coming on to the market.

Some developers tell you an apartment is such a good investment that they are prepared to guarantee the monthly rental payments for a period of two years. Discounting for the moment the difficulty of enforcing such an agreement if the company reneges on the agreement, if one adds up such payments you may find that they total the equivalent of a discount on the asking price.

Related to JT's scenario, I have some questions about what I was told by various agents when I bought my condo six years ago.

Unamimously they said that when the time came to sell my condo, if/when I wanted to reinvest, the proper way was to export from Thailand and re-import the money, getting a new TorTor3 (at the time, now it's a FETF) for the new purchase. In order to export the money with minimal hassles, I would need the original TorTor 3, but I forget just what those hassles were? Taxation, I guess?

However, a couple agents said the "unofficial" way was to take a bag full of the actual THB proceeds from the sale to a money exchanger -- or certain "cooperative" bank branches -- and they will convert it to foreign currency and then convert it back to THB and issue a TorTor 3 for that conversion back to THB. The incentive for the money exchanger/bank is commissions on both conversion transactions.

Since I may well sell my condo, I wonder if the above "unofficial" method is totally illegal, or just a grey area, and if the same thing can be done these days with FETFs.

Does the unofficial method have the foreign currency sent from abroad?

There is another method which takes a bit of time. It is permitted to take up to $20k in foreign currency out of Thailand at any one time.

Convert the baht to $USD or GBP in Thailand. Take it overseas and deposit in account.

Rinse and repeat until total for purchase reached (3/4 trips?).

Then send the money back for a 'straight' purchase.