Globalist

"If an uneducated peasant girl, can get a 5 or 10 million baht house bought and paid for in 2-5 years by any means necessary. Good Luck to her."

Wow, do travel agents still exist..?!

I would recommend using Skyscanner + airlines' own sites for flights, and Agoda and Booking (actually owned by same company, but slightly different business models) for accommodation.

Similar to the UK then.

No, it's not. Ridiculous comparison. Britain has many large regional centres with a full range of high-quality services, e.g. Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, etc etc. Thailand has only Chiang Mai as a provincial city of quality, and even that is no great shakes.

I would say the comparison is relevant.

Some countries have only one large city and the rest are small in comparison. For example UK and the Nordic countries. Other countries have many similarly sized cities, e.g. Germany.

Who knows what causes these different types of developments, possibly many factors working together for each outcome.

One drawback of "single-city" countries is that housing prices tend to get extreme in that single city, since "everbody" wants to go there...

Definitely one of the tastiest and well-presented cuisines out there, but the high amounts of sugar used in almost every dish probably makes it one of the least healthy Asian cuisines...

I despise sex tourists.

What initially attracted you to Thailand then? Buddhism and wats? The food? Atmospehere? Or were you a defunct, Vietnam left-over?

You can't BS a BSer, and believe you me... there's plenty of us here.

None of your business but I found a good woman, good in every respect. On top of that my meagre pension goes a lot further here than back home. I had more than my fair share without paying for it back home. I probably got some of other peoples' share also and I never paid for it. I can't envisage betraying my wife, something that you of course would never understand. If you read what I wrote before you should understand that I have every reason to despise sex tourists that come to Thailand and insist on unprotected sex, spread their disgusting diseases around and then go back home. There are so many places that I have to avoid now, I can't stand the sight of these 'men of the world, seen it all, screwed 'em all hansum men. I despise them.

I see simple naive village girls going off 'down there' and coming back completely disillusioned and disgusted with Farangs. That's why they start ripping them off the second time they go down there.

Not defending sex tourism in any way, but most likely, the majority of sex buyers in Thailand are local Thais.

If that is correct, then "disgusting diseases" are likely to be mainly spread by local Thais. In particular considering that "sex tourists" are on average more knowledgable about STDs than local Thai sex buyers, due to better sex education, as elaborated on elsewhere in this thread.

It is certainly possible to watch iPlayer by procuring a VPN service and setting it to a UK server.

One of the more popular ones is HideMyAss. Yes the name is dubious.. but it is in fact reputable.

Can recommend LastPass. It works on most popular browsers.

I would doubt it's related to you "getting older" since you're only 29.. (unless you meant you were born in -29 :-) )

Regarding diet, I once experienced a similar problem when I was testing a virtually carb-free diet. That made me feel weak in the legs when running, so I changed back to carb-eating, although less than normal, and it was fine again.

Otherwise it can be that your muscles in your legs need training, or that your shoes are not suitable. Or perhaps that it's too hot, and you get overheated or dehydrated (?) Just throwing out wild ideas to test..

My Yoghurt recommendation would be Farmers Union. It is not sweetened and very delicious!

Never understood why some people choose low-fat though... Besides such products being less tasty, fat has always been a natural and necessary part of humans' diet (while refined sugar has never been). There is continually growing evidence that refined sugar - not fat - is the main culprit behind obesity.

Royal Place 1 & 2, The Grand in the same general area. Cheap too at 2.5 million for 60-70 m2.

Thanks for input, these look sturdy. Royal Place is "cheap" beacuse it's leashold with short term remaining. :-)

"Are all Thai companies so rubbish?"

No, they are not, but there is a serious shortage of skilled workers and engineers.

They are trying to please, but they can't find the manpower to do so.

Sorry for a slight thread spinoff, but the lack of skilled workmen is really an issue.

It seems commonplace to assume that any poor farmer automatically qualifies as a builder, plumber etc., simply because he/she is "used to manual labour"...

Also, they don't even get proper tools to use. Cost cutting madness...

Ideally Thailand should increase the capacity of vocational schools for educating workers (can be ex-farmers) in these sectors. But as usual, who would pay for that.. Perhaps the tax base has to increase first.

Does anyone have any recommendations for older (10-20 years old) condos in central Bangkok which are "still going strong" ?

In other words, well-built to begin with, with thick walls, good flooring and bathroom materials etc. plus of course well-maintaned over the years.

Nimmana looks like best location and facility on offer right now/ coming up.

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Nimmana does look very good, at least on paper. Also this developer (Key Star) does not have any track record, the owners were apparently in the rice (!) business before.

Do you know the interior specs, like flooring quality, kitchen surfaces, central A/C or not, hot water at all sources or not, etc ? (Can't tell from web site) The pictures from their computer simulated photos look A grade but pictures from their mock-up room look more like B grade...

The location is very good in principle, but any opinions on airplane noise, it looks like right in the flight path.. (?)

I think it has a central hot water to run to showers etc/ without having separate need to install separate units at each spot like the older condos. Also there is plumbing and wastes included for washing machine. The flooring is a good quality laminate or can have tiles; the laminate is standard. Air con to every room as standard and pipes hidden in the walls.

I have been to look around the site and seen the plumbing and sparks going in. Also checked the materials they'll be using for finishing. On the construction side; the infill (ie walls between the posts and beams) are using quality blocks and concrete- compared to other Thai buildings of a lower standard using the rubbish little bricks and more mortar than brick.

The floor plans / layout look like a good use of space; like fitting in 1 and 2 bedrooms with living room; like a western or UK style use of space- more rooms but a smaller and better designed use of the same space- compared to the old units of one massive studio room, which kinda wastes space and is harder to subdivide to make extra room without loosing light or whatever.

I am aware they are a first time developer / project for this company but hear from friends in the industry that they have employed a good experienced team and are going at it for quality and no problems, especially since the are wanting to do multiple projects and want to secure a good reputation. Money from rice trading maybe; but money is money to buy the experience of others- it's not like every financier is or needs to be a qualified architect to do their project- I say it comes down to the quality of the team put together.

Regards noise- they are using good glazing and like I said- the blocks in the walls are better insulation than most. I spent several hours over several days there and didn't notice any plane sound issues- nothing like as bad as out over the hangdong road by bigC.

Regards other projects- these ones around the highways maybe ok for farang wanting to buy and live long term in it themselves; but from a rental point I can not see why anybody would rent a condo out of town when got the same money they could rent a house. Only reason to buy a condo outside I can see is for quieter living with property in own name. So could be hard to rent and maybe a smaller market for re sale I not sure.

Regards luxury condo market- I would say it's look like a shortage of real quality units in Chiang Mai available. Especially in that prime location. So I think a premium / better return maybe available than getting another of the hundreds of low end aging condos which are swamping the market already. I expect there are plenty of people with money here too but after a short time in town or not finding a decent quality they move to a nicer house out side town and just accept to get a car and drive. I know lots of people renting houses over 50 or 60k pm. I think a good sized unit in nimmana could fetch in the same range. 118sqm with an nice view for example.

This is what I am hoping anyway- since I deposit already ;-)

Thanks Mccw! Since you are a buyer, you're obviuously not completely unbiased ;-) but it also means you've done your homework and your input does seem largely objective.

I think I might go there myself and have a look soon.

Another issue that comes to mind re CM is building standards w.r.t. earthquakes..

Perhaps check out Serene Lake/North Condo.

Yes, I did thanks, I mentioned it above. The good thing is that it is developed by Land and Houses (L&H). But the design and specs appear somewhat underwhelming to me.

Nimmana looks like best location and facility on offer right now/ coming up.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

Nimmana does look very good, at least on paper. Also this developer (Key Star) does not have any track record, the owners were apparently in the rice (!) business before.

Do you know the interior specs, like flooring quality, kitchen surfaces, central A/C or not, hot water at all sources or not, etc ? (Can't tell from web site) The pictures from their computer simulated photos look A grade but pictures from their mock-up room look more like B grade...

The location is very good in principle, but any opinions on airplane noise, it looks like right in the flight path.. (?)

Thanks VIBE, and sorry to hear about your experiences.. not exactly what you like to go through moving into a brand new condo...

Having quite some global property experience, I am generally VERY sceptical to developers in Thailand. Having said that, I am aware that a few of them are in fact very professional. For example, I have personally very good experience of RaimonLand.

Would be interesting to hear feedback from others regarding Kingsfield / Quality Condo..

Well, instead of asking TV members to guess the bank's reason for rejection, you may be better off asking the bank...

"You should ask yourselves whether you can accept a 50-year concession that would see more than 100,000 workers being brought to the country and the constructor insisting on land along the route for development."

I suspect this is the real reason. Whenever China does big infrastructure projects in other countries like Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and even African countries they bring in Chinese laborers. Often times these laborers don't return to China and stay put whether they have a visa or not. The General is right to be concerned.

Exactly!

Refreshing to see a leader who says no to Chinese imperialism.

Also, going for double track instead of high-speed seems like better invested money.

Thanks for feedback!

Many of those are already completed, so less interesting for me I'm afraid, as I want to buy off plan.

Those that look nicest on paper IMHO are Green Valley and Alps, both by Kingsfield Asia. Especially Green Valley looks nice, although it is golf-focused (which can be both good and bad).

I researched Kingsfield Asia a bit and it seems it's formally a Thai company, with some Singaporean connections (e.g. architect), which has recently started some developments (only?) in Chiang Mai. They seem affiliated with another (mysterious) company called Quality Condo.

Does anyone have any feedback on the track record of Kingsfield/Quality Condo...?

It still seems like none of the major A grade developers have come to Chiang Mai yet, they all stay in Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya and still believe there is no high end rental market in CM...

Land and Houses, a very solid developer (did e.g. Terminal 21 in Bangkok), has one off-plan project in CM called "North", but not A grade...

Although not sure why the OP must invest in Thailand only, if these funds are indeed limited to investment in Thailand, some ideas could be:

- Quality, highly rentable, condo in top location

- Shares in some promising companies listed on the SET

- Various funds traded in Thailand (as proposed by some above)

- Thai government bonds or Thai corporate bonds issued by solid Thai companies

- Basket of currencies in multi-currency account held in Thai bank

What the best investment returns are depend on the level of risk taken and the investment period.

Would anyone know if there are any plans by any major developers to build a grade A / luxury condo project somewhere in Chiang Mai?

I'm aware that there are a couple of very old ones that are of decent quality (e.g. Furama, Floral), but I'm looking for an upcoming high-end project.

See, that's the thing about it: You point out that nobody is greeting you - and at the same time you do exactly the same. I wouldn't surprise me if your Thai neighbours just started a thread on pantip asking why "farang never say hello" to them. People always tend to think it's only the other part who's doing something wrong. Feel free to break the chain.

Yes I definitely agree to that in principle. Problem is, you need eye contact to smile to somebody. :-) But I suppose one could call out in any case..

According to 'Read for Life' Thais read on the average 5 books a year. I don't believe this da*n statistic, I think they did their survey amongst students or something, and certainly not in rural areas. In Vietnam they read 30 books a year each.

Having said that, I wonder how many books a year Farangs read? I only read learn Thai textbooks at present.

how many books a year would a farang farmer with a primary school education read if he had to work the same hours as a thai farmer?

Is it obvious that a Thai farmer works more hours than a "farang" farmer, on average..? Personally, I doubt that.