newnative

Ah, yes . . . 'the new tap from Thaiwatsadu was faulty.' Dollars to donuts, it was not faulty, the installation was. We just finished building a new house. When the plumbers installed the outdoor shower, it did not work. Water came out of the shower and then didn't. Brand new shower, supposedly 'faulty'. No, it wasn't, but bought a new one anyway. Likely problem, the initial water was full of debris and clogged up the shower when the water was first turned on and ran through it. 5 identical bum guns installed in the 5 bathrooms, 3 or 4 leaked. 'Faulty'. (If I had ten cents for every bum gun I've had to replace in the 20some properties we've had I'd be rich but still cursing the damn things.) Back to Boonthavorn to have them checked. Nothing wrong with them. Reinstalled, not leaking--so far. 5 toilets installed, 3 leaked and various parts of them had to be reinstalled. 2 of the 4 identical indoor showers leaked and needed to be fixed. At that point the 'plumber' had stopped calling all the hardware faulty.

You're not confused. Trump is still America's Hitler. Just ask Vance, who called him that yet has so little in the way of morals and integrity that he went to work for someone he views as America's Hitler. How could anybody do that and look themselves in the mirror? I've posted several times that Trump is a dead man walking. Hugely overweight, he is a very old 78, way overdrawn on borrowed time. I doubt he'll see 80, which leaves the super-scary thought of Hitler-worshipping Vance as president at some point should Trump win. Voters need to recognize the danger of both Trump and Vance anywhere near the presidency.

We were told that we could have a model in black by the end of this month--apparently we were one of the early bookers in Pattaya--but we like the higher end model that comes in gray so we will likely wait for that model and color. No word yet on when one of those will be available.

I think good movies are still being made, you just need to look for them. In the age of streaming and Netflix, though, some stories that might have been two hour theatrical movies are now, instead, being made into limited series and given an expanded treatment. Chernobyl, for example, could have been a movie but I thought it worked very well expanded into 5-parts that allowed extra time to delve into the story. Ditto for others such as Godless, Band of Brothers, Catch-22, Fosse/Verdon, The Queen's Gambit, Dopesick, All the Light We Cannot See, Lessons in Chemistry, and many others.

Total liar--just like Trump. Ridiculous to boldly lie and say the 2020 election was swayed by the Hunter laptop, of all things. What rot. Trump lost by 7 million votes. Nobody gave a rat's ass about the laptop and Hunter wasn't running for anything. Scary this lying jerk could be a heart beat away from the presidency if dead man walking Trump wins.

Zero

Starting to hear some thunder.

Nothing on the important issue of health care in that long list--guess he's given up on his mythical 'beautiful' health care plan--which never got done in his first term in office, along with most of the above that isn't focused on lies in the first place, such as 'secure elections' and 'end weaponization of government'.

Beat me to it. The actual voters in 2016 rejected Trump for president. They didn't want him. No way, no how. The Electoral College thought otherwise and awarded him the presidency, going against what the actual voters wanted. The actual voters wisely chose Clinton by 2.8 million votes but were ignored. 2020 election. After the worst presidency in history, Trump is once again rejected by the actual voters--this time by 7 million votes. Actual American voters are smart enough not to want Trump--and have loudly said so twice at the ballot box. 2024 election. Likely the actual voters will once again prefer the Democrat candidate to Trump. Once again, the actual voters will likely be smart enough to know what's best for the country--as they also did in 2000 when the actual voters wanted Gore, but the EC appointed the Cheneybush disaster. My fear for 2024 is a repeat of 2016. 63% of Americans prefer to get rid of the cursed Electoral College. But, as with too many presidential elections, their preference is ignored.

We've been getting plenty of rain in my area of the Darkside--especially late afternoons and several in the middle of the night. Nice to get to skip watering the garden on the days it rains.

On the plus side--being a glass half-full guy--they'll die nice and clean after all that water has cascaded over them.

Yet another totally misleading and inaccurate headline designed, I imagine, solely to get AN readers to click on this time-wasting, utterly irrelevant article.

I'm one of the lucky ones, with an increasingly rare traditional pension and social security. My salary was low the 30 years I worked for the state of Virginia but the traditional pension has certainly been good in retirement. Along with the SS, I make more retired than I did working. And, the COLAs for both are keeping up with inflation, at least here in Thailand.

He died in a plane crash.

Back in August the Finance Ministry was predicting that 90% of the gamblers in the casinos would be local Thai gamblers. I thought that was claptrap when I read it and even more so now, when it is proposed that Thais pay a 5,000 baht entrance fee, while foreigners get in free. There's some dual pricing for ya. With the steep fee to secure a casino license, plus the steep annual fee, and the added costs to make the casino complexes also entertainment complexes, as well, I think they are going to need more than 10% of the customers to be foreign, especially if the aim, per the article, is to have these complexes 'bolster tourism'.

Earlier in the year the same trend was noted with hotel bookings--high-end hotels were doing better than lower-end hotels. So, that trend is continuing. Several posters on AN have repeatedly claimed that high-end tourists have abandoned Thailand due to the numbers of lower-end tourists that visit. Nice to see that is actually not the case.

Tiny baby step with the odd-even parking. Still way too timid in making the decisions that are really needed--like eliminating parking altogether on the major roads and adding extra travel lanes--North Pattaya Road the best example of a road that needs it badly. On some of these roads eliminating parking would also allow some room to plant trees and improve sidewalks where needed--parts of Pattaya Second Road have very narrow or no sidewalks at all. Also needed, a crew of Meter Maids on the major streets to ticket illegal parking. And, more public parking garages built, partly funded with parking fees, street parking meters and parking fines.

I mostly buy online items that I can't find anywhere else, or don't want to take time to shop around for. My last online purchase was seat cushions for my dining room chairs. They needed to be a specific size, thickness, and color--I could not find all three in any stores but did find them online. Recent online purchases have been solar outdoor lights, a desk mat, decorative picture hanging hooks for Japanese wall scrolls, an Asian art print, throw pillow covers, and protective sink mats for kitchen sinks.

I'm noticing the sidewalk and the beach looks clean.

There's a huge number of restaurants all over Pattaya with about every type of food you could want. You don't necessarily need to give up western food, just order judiciously depending on your budget. You can certainly spend 899 baht for a meal but you don't have to. My spouse and I don't eat red meat so we mostly order chicken, pork, or fish. Central Festival and Terminal 21 malls both have food courts with a variety of different meal choices at reasonable prices, plus lots of other restaurants. Specials are out there if you look around. If you eat lunch at Fuji restaurant you get a free drink and free fruit cup for dessert as part of the meal. We like their chicken teriyaki meal that's less than 200 baht. In addition to the chains, there are lots of local restaurants and it's fun to try new places. Spouse and I have a favorite local restaurant on the Darkside of Pattaya with very reasonable prices. We often order a chicken dish that comes with two grilled breasts of chicken, a choice of gravy toppings, small salad, and a choice of either french fries, mashed potatoes, plain rice, or garlic rice. 100 baht, served in a nice, air-conditioned restaurant. We also like their large ham and cheese pizza, 245 baht.

Absolutely! Keeping a roof over your head is usually your biggest monthly expense. That's where Thailand shines vs. most western countries. Places like Pattaya offer a wide variety of condos and houses at a wide variety of price points, to fit every budget, big or small. Need a house to buy for 100 million baht? Got it. Need a condo to rent for 7,000 baht? Also, got it. The OP is laser-focused on the price of a sandwich or a pair of flip-flops when determining how expensive a place is when he should be looking at the big ticket budget items--and, he's not the only one. I often find myself chuckling at some poster on the Forum complaining about the price of some small item--I think one time it was a can of beans--and then declaring they can live so much more cheaply in the West. Well, maybe, if they can figure out how to live in an empty bean can. I would say, for the OP, why are you, with your apparently tight budget, spending $6 for a sandwich when there's so much better, cheaper food available? Ditto for your expensive flip-flops. Do some shopping around. Should you choose to leave, sending a big buh bye bye.

Although my Thai spouse and I have lived in a number of condos, we are now living in a large house with a pool on the Darkside of Pattaya. We enjoyed our seaview condos but now that we are older--I am 72--we wanted more space to host a large family of relatives who visit us. We now have all the space we need to do that. We also have space should we need live-in help at some point. Rather than going the Company route with the house, it is in my spouse's name on freehold, not leased, land. I said in a previous post that I didn't like leasing. As with you, I do like the idea that my spouse is set up and relatives will eventually inherit the house and land.

I don't think Thais necessarily take offense because you are a foreigner complaining. Several weeks ago my Thai spouse and I ate at a Thai restaurant and he complained about both the quality and the quantity of the chicken in his dish--what little chicken was there was mostly skin. The server seemed to be very offended that he had complained and said that their chicken came from a certain well-known food business--as if that would magically turn the few pieces of chicken skin into more and actual chicken. Needless to say, spouse was quite offended by the server's bad, disrespectful attitude and we shall not be dining at that establishment ever again. One thing I have noticed is the often lack of customer training with serving staff. A sincere apology, with another serving of the dish produced, would have gone a long way to keeping us as customers, rather than driving us away, for good.

Yes, they did, do to a variety of different factors, which would take too much time to go into detail here, but one factor being they were all seaview condos, to start. I have gone into detail on some of the factors in posts on other threads dealing with real estate. Closing costs were almost always split 50/50 between buyer and seller, which is common in Thailand. When calculating our selling price, we. of course, figured in both taxes and realtor fees, if any, when we were determining how much we needed to sell for to make a profit.

My Thai spouse and I have owned 18 condos in foreign quota and 2 condos in Thai name. We never had a problem selling any of the 18 foreign quota condos to another foreign buyer, while keeping the foreign quota. With a number of these condos, the foreign quota was full in the project. These condos were easy sells, each at a profit. What you describe in your post never happened with any of our sales. The two condos in Thai name were bought in projects where the foreign quota was full. They were more difficult sells, although one was easier than the other as the condo was in one of the most desirable projects in Pattaya. Buyers will buy there even without foreign quota, as we did, because they want to be in that specific project, which is in a superior location with few other condo projects as competition. With this project, foreign quota condos are priced higher than other units not in foreign quota. Both condos eventually sold at a profit but they took longer to sell. Unless a buyer is in a situation such as the above where they absolutely must be in a specific project, I would still recommend buying in foreign quota. You own the condo in your name, there's no Thai company directors to deal with, and no annual company paperwork you are hassled with every year. Easier to buy, easier to sell with more potential buyers, easier to own with no annual paperwork.