newnative

Those poor Juristic folk. Likely a sight they can't 'unsee'.

You're citing items of relatively small expense, jam, for heaven's sake, while ignoring the really big ticket items, like keeping a roof over your head, utilities, real estate taxes, homeowner maintenance fees, and so on. Twelve years ago, I was renting out my small 1 bedroom USA condo for $1500 a month, about 54,000 baht. You can rent a 1 bedroom condo in Thailand most places for 15,000 baht a month. Of course, condos for less or more can be found depending on your budget and location. That 39,000 baht savings will buy a lot of jam and wine each month. That same small USA condo is now valued by Zillow at $273,000, about 9.8 million baht. Should you choose to own rather than rent, you can easiy find 1 bedroom condos most places in Thailand for 3MB or less, leaving much more money in the bank compared to purchasing that USA condo. Monthly condo maintenance fees, and taxes, will be far less, too. Again, more money for jam and wine.

Yes. I know my stock portfolio hit an all-time high on Friday.

Pity while all this slow, disruptive work was being done they didn't start work on either overpasses or underpasses for the major Pattaya intersections with Sukhumvit that don't have either. Three underpasses were planned, but, so far, only one has been built. The overpass work on Sukhumvit that was done south of Pattaya should continue through the Pattaya section of the road--or underpasses.

Once the third quarter is over, compare third quarter Thai domestic travel 2024 to third quarter Thai domestic travel 2023 and only then can you say whether third quarter Thai domestic travel 2024 has actually 'plummeted'. 57% might be close to the norm for third quarter travel--we don't know because the 2023 figure was not given.

Purely unscientific but I have two Thai nieces and one Thai nephew. All are upper-middle class, educated, and attractive. They are all in their middle to late 30s. None of the three are married, none have had any children, and, it seems, none are planning to ever have kids. My Thai spouse is one of 5 children, now in their 50s and 60s, and, among the five of them, just these three were produced.

I am in Thailand to be with my Thai spouse. It's been great.

Which is the same number won as India, with 1.3 billion potential standout athletes vs. Thailand's 73 million.

Now if we can just get the Seal U plug-in hybrid SUV.

Nailed it.

I still remember my first visit to Cambodia with my spouse about 12 years ago. We took a van to the border and then hired a car to take us to Siem Reap, on National Highway 1, I believe. The entire trip, almost every cross road to the paved highway was dirt. When we got to Siem Reap, many of the streets were very bumpy gravel. The pot holes were so deep on some streets that we could barely go walking pace on the 3-wheeled vehicle that took us around town. When we left Siem Reap to do some touring, it wasn't long after we got out of the town that the electric poles stopped--no electricity after that point. No electricity out of town and also no running water, wih the houses mostly small 1 or 2 room wooden structures on stilts. We both were comparing Cambodia to Thailand--two countries right next door to each other yet one so advanced and the other still so primitive. We had sort of taken for granted up to that point that most places we went in Thailand we'd be on a good road to get there--and would have electricity and running water when we arrived. The visit to Cambodia really was an eye-opener as neither of us expected such a stark difference in development. Happily, we returned to Cambodia in 2017 and we noticed some progress, especially in Siem Reap, where our visit was centered.

With the Motorway improvements it's no longer 2 hours to BKK airport. Leaving Pattaya right now, it's 1 hour 21 minutes according to my phone map app. We can usually be at our downtown Bangkok condo in 2 hours or less, non-rush hour.

So true. And, if they did actually visit, it was years ago and they didn't venture far from Soi 6 or Walking Street.

I think your title is incorrect, at least for me. I certainly don't 'hate' Phuket. My spouse and I had a very nice time when we visited. For living year-round, though, we prefer Pattaya, hands down. We like being just an easy drive to Bangkok, where we have a getaway condo. We like being close to a big airport, for when we travel. We like Pattaya's size--not too big and not too small--it's easy to get to the places we go to frequently. We like Pattaya's wide variety of housing choices at all price points to rent or to own, and it's different, interesting neighborhoods to choose from. We like the wide variety of shopping choices, and health care services. And, we like the expat community here, where we have made some very nice friendships.

Yawn

True about the Chinese and number 4. If you notice, in Pattaya, there are highrises View Talay 1, 2, 3A, 3B, 5C, 5D, 6, 7, and 8. But no View Talay 4 highrise. The first and last condos my spouse and I owned did have floor 13s--we lived on floor 13 in the first one. Likely some of the others also had floor 13s, too, but I can't remember.

A number of countries use mail-in voting, including Canada, the UK, South Korea, Germany, Iceland, Switzerland, and others. Idiot Trump, fortunately, loudly opposed mail-in voting in 2020, citing all sorts of completely false claims regarding it. His opposition to it, and urging his supporters to wait until Election Day to vote, possibly cost him the election. Yaa! Dems, alas, will not be so fortunate this year. Trump, apparently finding some heretofor deeply hidden and never-used brain cells, has done a complete flip-flop regarding mail-in voting. Guess what? All those lies he told regarding mail-in voting? Never mind. Just lies. Mail-in voting, according to Trump, is now hunky-dory and he is urging his supporters to use it. Boo! Why couldn't those damn, lazy brain cells of his have just remained inactive until after Election Day?

Terrible decision.

Seems like Thailand is getting along just fine without a submarine. Find a better use for the money--and that would be just about anything.

555 You have to hand it to them--they can spin anything.

Horrible. Men, too.

I think you need to distinguish between tourists, who visit once for maybe a week or two, and others who visit frequently and/or live here for extended periods or year-round. My four sisters visited Thailand in 2017 for 10 days and they had a wonderful time. Everything was new, interesting, exotic, and so different from where they live in the US. They still talk about their trip and the fun they had and the new experiences. One of my sisters even had a little travel book made for everyone with lots of photos and descriptions from their trip. That's a typical tourist. If you think back to your first visit, it was probably something like that, too--as was my first visit in December 2009.

Around 80,000 baht a month.

I liked the first sentence of your second paragraph. There are definitely Thais with money to buy homes. The other day my spouse and I were on the Motorway from Bangkok back to Pattaya. I think I counted at least 10 billboards advertising new housing estates with prices ranging from 30MB to 50MB and more. Plus a number of other housing projects with more normal prices. My Thai brother-in-law is house hunting in the BKK suburbs. He looked at one new small 3-bedroom 2-story on a tiny land plot for about 7MB. No air-con, no finished kitchen, no furniture, no appliances, no built-ins. Not even shower glass in the bathrooms. Left to think about it. Went back a few days later. It was sold. Most of the project is sold and the developer didn't want to reduce the price much on the few remaining homes--and, apparently doesn't need to.

A number of the desirable condo projects in Pattaya have reached the 49% limit. But, you are right, in most other areas, without high concentrations of expats, it's not a big factor with condos and the proposed increase in foregn ownership will have little or no impact on prices.