Dougal

Yes, a house can be built for 400K.

My gf did it...

in Lopburi 160km north of BKK in a tiny mooban well away from main roads and on land her family gave her.

Lopburi is not HuaHin and you have no family to give you the land.

And if you think you can get it built for Thai prices on your own, well......

This post leads to the next question. What is the cost of land ? Obviously land in a lily white enclave surrounded by mansions will be high. But what is the value of land in a lower middle class community ? Given that most Thai workers do not live under tarps in ditches , housing must be affordable to them or newspapers would be as filled with stories of the wretched urban homeless as they are in America. Land must be cheap somewhere or factory workers would all be homeless.

There are plenty of Thai workers living under tarpaulins and even more living in tin shacks. They are itinerant workers and have no land. When the current project is finished they will simply move on.

The long term workers often live in what you would probably describe as a garage. They will probably be renting at a rate of between 2k to 3k a month. One room apartments in a newish block of flats are available for 3k a month. 6k will get you a pretty comfortable and spacious room. But of course you will never own that.

Buying a plot of land in an area you might actually want to live in and then building a reaonable house with floor tiles that don't turn into an ice rink when they are wet, a kitchen with 'proper' appliances and bedrooms with enough room to swing a cat, is a very different prospect. Figures like 400k, and I think someone threw in a couple of hundred thousand earlier in the thread, simply show that the writers have no grip on the realities of the situation and are living in cloud cukooland.

Yes SB, I think everyone realises by now that you are a condo enthusiast. Safe and sound and so much more convenient when you choose to join the Hua Hin equivalent of the Pattaya Sky Diving Club.

However, despite all the apparent drawbacks and risks many people prefer not to live in what is to all intents and purposes a hotel minus room service, so they buy a house and, amazingly, the ones I know are sleeping quite happily.

The only thing that surprises me about these threads, that appear with monotonous regularity is that anyone is surprised by them.

The truth is that builders are pretty much the same the world over. Their modus operandi is to build as quickly and as cheaply as possible - that's what builders do.

The difference is that in the UK at least very few people are closely connected with the building process so they don't see the shortcuts, the bodges and the work arounds, that are the stock in trade of any builder. Then come to Thailand where they have their dream home fixed in their mind and gosh, the builder seems to have a completly different idea. Which is made worse a 100% when their wife has recruited an Isaan cousin and is handling the day to day translation.

Read a book written by one of the farangs who have had a house built here, learn from their mistakes, use a local builder who can show you houses he has built before, have it 150% clear in your mind what you want and learn enough Thai to be able to communicate it to your builder.

I have contact details of the owner if you are interested.

Have you considered the existing airfield at Pak Nam Pran, South of Hua Hin? The airfield is only currently used for motorcycle racing at weekends and I am sure the owner would love to see it used for it's original purpose.

I went along on Sunday for about five minutes, more to see if the event was any different from last year than anything else.

There is not really much opportunity to spectate from the beach, all the action takes place about a mile off shore and as by far the largest class is optimists, all you can really see are a lot of small white sales going back and forth. Although I guess you could always drive up to Khao Ta Kiab and watch the larger boats pass.

There was no commentary broadcast or on shore TV screen set-up.

All in all an event for the competitor or socialite - if you happen to move in those circles.

There are a number of factors which affect HH land prices other than those already mentioned. On the seaward side of the Petchkasem Road HH is bounded by army camps, that effectively mean that for HH to spread the only way is West away from the sea and up into the hills. This is where the majority of current developments are taking place and where the cheapest land is.

Something else that hasn't been aired too much is the problems of drainage. Many areas of land at the foothills to the West of town suffer from water run off after rain. The Soi 102 area, which has lots of existing developments is notorious for this but it is not alone. When looking at that bargain price land consider how much fill you may need to put in as well as the cost of supplying roads and electricity.

Having crossed the railway track which runs parallel with the Petchkasem Road (the main road through HH) you are faced with the problem of crossing that same railway everytime you want to get into or out of the town. Although trains are not exactly frequent the crossings do make very effective choke points which can be a nightmare to negotiate, particularly during the school and work runs in the early morning and late afternoon. Major projects like La Valee on the Pala U road are only going to make this situation worse when people start moving in next year.

Everyone who has land for sale in HH has a good idea of it's potential value and for sure sellers will ask sky high prices if they think they can get away with it, but if land seems like a bargain ask yourself why it so much cheaper than somewhere else.