newnative

Yes, it's a beautiful day here in Pattaya, too. My pool awaits after some exercise.

Good.

If you want confusing, just take a look at Thepprasit Road, maybe my least favorite road in Pattaya and even more so after the makeover. They have painted large white 'forward' arrows on the parking lane road sections next to the U-turn lanes. The traffic is supposed to, in ballet-like movements, segue to the left in these areas into the parking lane to get around the cars waiting to U-turn. But, they have neglected to paint these sections of the parking lane with no parking stripes, so you're now supposed to magically transport yourself, and your car, through all the cars that are legally parked in the, which is it, traffic? parking? lane.

We buy where we want to live, not where we think we will make money. We have lived all over Pattaya and our properties increased in value wherever we lived. We wanted to try living in Wongamat so we bought a condo there. That's what we always do--buy to live in, for a time, until we get restless. We also wanted to try a bigger condo, as we had been living mostly in studios and 1-2 bedrooms. Wongamat turned out to be a good investment--and we enjoyed living there, for a time. We took a big financial risk though, buying a large 3-bedroom condo wreck. We didn't know what we would find--there could have been some awful, very expensive, surprises lurking. But we liked: as close to the ocean as any condo in Pattaya, with gorgeous seaviews small condo project with no illegal daily renters condo lived like a small bungalow, with an outside entrance with window boxes on one side and a nice, big balcony on the ocean side, with access from the LR and the MBR. northwestern exposure, not direct west sun easy proximity to places we went to: T21, the hospital, Central Marina, Lotus's, Central Festival, Index, Home Pro, restaurants, etc. nice surroundings--The Palm condo next door and Baan Plai Haad condo--also nice--across the street beautiful, wide teak floors, and a good floorplan very nice condo grounds, covered parking, and a nice pool foreign quota A few negatives but the pluses outweighed them--you always need to balance the two, in my opinion. We did a good renovation, enjoyed living there for a time, sold at a profit, and moved on to our final Pattaya condo, at Northshore, before moving to the Darkside when covid hit and nudged us into changing our lifestyle to living in pool villas.

Buying a property to live in--or as an investment--is not 'working' and it is totally allowed and legal. All our properties have been either bought in foreign quota or Thai name--also totally legal. There is also not a required time limit on how long one lives in a property one buys--and there is no requirement to live in it at all. Thailand actually encourages expats to buy property as one way to fill the requirements for one type of a long-term visa, if I'm not mistaken. It is also not illegal to make repairs and renovations to a property, and to hire Thai workers to do the work. Show me one post where I have urged readers to buy property in Thailand. I challenge you to find even a single one. I have certainly posted on what I see as some of the advantages of owning property--here or anywhere else--sometimes with examples of how I have benefitted, but that's not the same as telling people to go out and buy a property in Thailand. I do also post on real estate issues, when I have something to say or if I feel incorrect information has been posted. In most cases, when I post, I relay my experiences, often with examples. In the past, I have posted on all sorts of real estate issues, questions, and, yes, howlers. One such howler was the post stating that condo projects go crashing to the ground when they reach the age of 30. Not to be outdone, another poster said, no, it's actually age 20. I think I might have been living at Garden Cliff at the time, Pattaya's first condo project, which is well over 30 years old and still standing--which I pointed out in a post providing a second opinion. I probably also noted some other older projects as other examples. Another howler, from more than one poster, was that once bought, a property is impossible to resell, at any price, in Thailand. Basically, you can't even give them away and nobody has ever sold a property and made any money in Thailand. I begged to differ. That's probably what I do most of--give a different take on something. For example, someone will post, usually with no examples, a broad statement, such as 'all realtors are useless'. I'm of the opinion that all realtors are not useless so I've posted a second opinion several times in the past. Readers are welcome to reject my take, or not read my posts at all--which I highly recommend for you. The main thing with me is I try to back up what I post with examples and my real life experiences. Why do I think realtors are not useless? It's based on 15 years of varied experiences buying and selling twentysome properties here. It's based on 15 years of varied experiences working with agents and agencies. It's observing for 15 years the hard work realtors do. And, most importantly, it's based on most of our properties being sold with the help of a realtor. Not all, but most. When we first came to Pattaya--and Rayong before that-- we didn't know a single soul. How the heck would we have sold a property, knowing nobody? Fortunately, we had realtors to find the buyers and do the selling for us. I've also posted on such things as condo fees, how we stage a property for sale, how we list a property for sale, pricing, illegal daily renters, real estate contracts, off-plan buying, foreign quota, how we investigate a property to buy, how a property search should work, and other topics. Again, readers are welcome to ignore my posts. I continue to be puzzled by your fascination with what I post--especially since you really have no interest in actually buying real estate in Thailand. Why are you wasting your time slavishly reading and commenting on my posts, I wonder. With no interest in buying, it also doesn't explain your asking me the other day if I 'know of anyone selling a condo in Wongamat'. Huh? Shouldn't that have been 'renting a condo' since you wouldn't be caught dead buying anything? Makes no sense, but that can happen with your posts. By the way, the correct question should have been: Do I know of any condos for sale in the size of_______ fill in the size of the condo, with the price range of _______fill in the price range of the condo in Wongamat? Remember, these are the basics you start with: Property type, property size, property price range, and property place. You only got two--property type and place . You're apparently not retaining anything from my posts--maybe stop wasting your time.

I doubt that another highrise building is going up 'inbetween the new construction' and the condo you are interested in. Be a neat trick to somehow put another highrise on just 20 yards of ground between your building and the first construction plot. We had a new 40-story office building go up right next door to our Bangkok condo, with the separation mostly being the perimeter roads for fire trucks on both sides. Like you would be, we were on the other side of the building facing the other way. The construction didn't bother us, though it's getaway condo and we weren't there a lot of the time. When we were there we never heard any construction noise. The builder was required to do a number of things, including cleaning our pool daily, shield the construction, and clean the windows and balconies on units closest to the construction--which the builder did--there was a cleaning schedule posted in the elevators and we sometimes saw the pool being cleaned with non-condo crews. We were living at Lumpini Park Beach condo when Lumpini Seaview condo was built directly behind PB. We could see the construction from our balcony but it was some distance away, with PB's parking garage and perimeter roads as separation. Lumpini does fast construction and I think the two LS towers were topped out in around a year. We weren't bothered by the construction and it was interesting to watch LS going up. I think in your case you need to weigh the pros and cons, with what might also be available to rent. It's definitely a plus that the construction is on the other side but you should also consider construction traffic and the road situation, getting in and out, etc. With Park Beach we could exit to the front or the back of the project, for example, and Jomtien Second Road is wide there and could handle parked concrete trucks.

A few corrections to your post. I made my first visit to Thailand in December 2009, not 2005--I don't know where you got 2005. I moved to Thailand in June 2010, at age 59. Yes, I did retire early and it was one of the best decisions I've made. Also took American Social Security early, at age 62--no regrets there, either. Second correction--I never said the time on the market for our Pattaya property sales was never more than 6 months. We had some that took more than 6 months and one that took more than a year. I might have said 6 months could perhaps be an average TOM. Third correction--I never said I have only experienced 'peaks' in the property market here. What I have said is we have not lost any money on selling a property here. Not the same thing. Also, we are not living in Wongamat, although we liked that area. Except for 5 rental condos that we owned at various times, we live in all the properties that we buy and, after a time, sell. We owned 2 condos in Rayong before moving to Pattaya in December 2010 and we have also owned 2 getaway condos in Bangkok, one of which we still own. Spouse and I recently bought our 23rd property in Thailand, a house on the Darkside. How long we will be living here is anyone's guess. We're trying to figure out if we want to build another house or look for one to buy. Meanwhile, we have a roof over our head that we are enjoying living in and putting our stamp on. Life is good, wherever we are. I consider what we do a hobby. Yes, it's a hobby that makes some money but we know going in that there's no guarantee we will make any money when we get restless and decide to move and buy something else. Several times we have risked what was, for the small potatoes we are, a great deal of money when we bought, first, a large wreck of a 3-bedroom condo and, several years later, an even worse wreck of a 3-bedroom pool villa. Either one could have been a money-loser but I've said many times that we like to own and would own even if we might lose money. That's us. Just us. Yes, there are peaks and 'troughs' in real estate--and the stock market. However, during a trough, that doesn't mean that every stock is decreasing in value. Nor does a housing trough mean that every property goes down in value. If the stock market hits a trough and my 'X' stock loses value, I'm not required to sell the stock at a loss. I can continue to own it and wait for it to regain value. Again, it's the same for real estate. We sell only when we can make a profit--not seeing much 'Wolf' there.

No. We haven't lived in Wongamat for a number of years.

Agree. Yet another case of somebody driving a motorbike, likely with no experience, on roads they also have no experience with. The result? This.

You're right. There is definitely paperwork involved in applying for a Schengen visa. My Thai spouse just applied for one for a trip we are taking in November. Our first stop is Spain so we applied with the Spanish Embassy using BTS--the office was just a short walk from the Terminal 21 subway stop, using the walkway that went right to the building. For the application we needed, from memory: Cover letter explaining the trip's purpose, where you will be going, etc. Copies of round trip plane tickets Copies of hotel bookings for trip Copies of bank statements and also letter from the bank Copies of any previous Schengen visas Thailand employment documentation Schengen visa application filled out There may have been some other things required but the above is what I remember. The Schengen visa service you use should have a list of what you need to prepare. We just heard that it has been processed--that took about 15 days.

East of Sukhumvit, Pattaya. And, it probably should be renamed as it is booming and not very dark anymore.

Lazada is supposed to hold payment to the seller for I believe 7 days exactly for this reason--a problem with the product delivered. We had a big problem with a tv we ordered. Instead of getting a tv, we got a small package of stickers. The sticker package had the exact same order number as for the tv so it was clearly fraud on the seller's part. We immediately contacted Lazada and they sent someone to pick up the sticker and the packaging. We thought we would get a quick refund but it took several weeks and numerous phone calls and emails. The process should be much quicker--especially in cases like ours where it was out and out fraud and not a case of the wrong size of something being sent. I think you can likely get a refund--if you keep at it--but it will be a case of your deciding if the amount is worth the effort. The fraud sellers know that some people will not make the effort and others will mistakenly throw out what is delivered--which we almost did as it was such a valueless item, thinking it was some free promotion by Lazada. I'm not sure we would have gotten a refund had we thrown out the stickers.

All the free food you could possibly eat, all the free money you could possibly spend, and no work required. Idle hands are the devil's workshop--especially appropriate in this case.

A billion is a big deal--or should be when the US is so heavily in debt. So, with your thinking, it's ok to completely waste a billion or more dollars because other money has also been wasted. Okey dokey. I'm an independent voter, by the way, who did not agree with the student loan forgiveness program or the lax border control.

Ha. I can do math just fine. And, thank you for making my case for me. You're right--the USA is spending 2 billion each for the 2 AF1 replacements with a fixed cost contract. Boeing has spent at least 2 billion more. Simply Flying has pegged it at 7 billion. Spending another 1 billion, but likely more than that, to build a third plane--that isn't needed and will be parked at Trump's library--no way adds up to a 'savings'. USA spending 4 billion now. USA spending at least 5 billion due to a useless not free gift to Trump. Which is less? 4 billion or 5 billion? Hard to see any 'savings' when at least 1 billion more is being spent. It remains a useless billion dollar toy for Trump, especially with two AF1s that we now have that will serve fine until the 2 new ones arrive. It's really no different than someone having two used Cadillacs that they drive. They've ordered two new Cadillacs and are awaiting their delivery--they're being customized. But, impatient, they order a third Cadillac to drive while they wait for the other two. But, the kicker, the third Cadillac isn't ready to drive, either. Like the other two, it needs to be customized first. Spending that extra billion--or more--makes no sense at all. And, it makes no sense whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, although the GOP used to be the party that touted fiscal responsibility. That's gone out the window with this super expensive, superfluous toy for Trump.