williamgeorgeallen

you have a better chance than most. you are not starting a business or getting involved with a bar girl. (I did both) I spend a bit of time in burriram and it is not so much fun up there. I plan to do one school semester for my son next year. not sure I will last the whole 6 months. my advice would be to keep mobile. don't buy in esan, not for the first year or 2.

hard to sell now. I was lucky to offload my 2 houses last year. made a profit on one lost on the other. took years to sell. tried agents, complete waste of time. both sold on baht sold website.

I have yet to see it work between a thai girl and western man. only ones I know stay together is because he is paying her a good salary, she is living a better lifestyle in a nice house or they are together because they have kids.

if you move into their house try paying some 'rent' don't spend all day hanging around getting on her nerves and it might last a bit longer.

actually I don't understand why a foreigner would want to stay with a thai woman. we have nothing in common with them. especially in Thailand. they make great mums but that's about it.

Things have changed. To get a work permit in Bangkok you need to show social fund payments for your staff. You also need to provide photos of you and your staff in the workplace.

i have had my business also since 2007 and every year we make the work permit and non im visa it gets more and more complicated. this year we had both immigration and the labor office come out to my business to take photos and interview the staff. then we just had to take alot more photos of the staff 'working' in my shop, even though both agencies had been out to my shop already. be prepared it is almost impossible to make money in thailand especially if you are competing against thai people. for a start you are going to be down 150 000thb per year just doing everything correctly with taxes, visas and work

Last year, a foreign owned corporation 'task force' was formed. They hired 24 workers in BKK to concentrate on foreign owner compliance. Let's face it, they don't want us running businesses here. They want us to come here, drop stupid money brainlessly, and leave.

Either that, or they just want us to follow the law. Which many foreigners find this (i.e. following the law) such an alien idea that I wonder why they would invest in a country in which they expect that the law doesn't need to be followed. Sounds contradictory to me.

the rules here are very difficult. examples are

you must have a shop or place of business even if you don't need one

you must hire 4 thais even if you don't need them

you must pay tax on a set income, even if you are not making any profit

all these annoying laws only apply to us foreigners and make it hard to compete with thai businesses. following the rules can often mean a business is unprofitable.

seems to be mostly the bargirls who speak the best english, especially if a sponsor has given her a stint in a western country. surely there must be some way to harness this free learning system. compulsory 1 year stint with a ferang tirak, then the language skills can be passed onto her thai boyfriend or husband. my girl speaks very good english and she did not do any english lessons in school.

think good rules to opening a business in thailand are

1)dont invest anything you cant afford to loose.

2)dont rely on any business income for the first 3 to 5 years. first few years were lean for me.

i put about 1 million into my watersports business. i could afford to loose it and with rent from 2 propertis back in ferang land could survive the early years. in 9 years i have seen many try and almost none succeed.

now my business has a solid customer base and i am considering selling it to the guy who is managing it. has been alot of work and all i will get back is my initian investment but i have had a good standard of living and it has provided me with visas to live here.

would be interested to hear you business idea.

my accountant at plan B will let you know. she has done a great job for me for 7 years now.

I've searched for this firm but cannot find them. Are they based in Bangkok? Do you have a web address you can provide?

Thanks.

their office is on pattaya klang near SCB bank which is not far from sukumvit. 6 years of good service from them.

I started my company in 2007. When we first opened the company we only had one Thai for the first 3-4 months.

I was able to get my work permit right away. So OP you can start the business without hiring all for employees

right away. When you go to renew your passport or extend or apply for a new B visa you will need to show taxes

had been paid and that you have 4 workers.

Thailand can be very profitable if you get in the right industry.

Things have changed. To get a work permit in Bangkok you need to show social fund payments for your staff. You also need to provide photos of you and your staff in the workplace.

i have had my business also since 2007 and every year we make the work permit and non im visa it gets more and more complicated. this year we had both immigration and the labor office come out to my business to take photos and interview the staff. then we just had to take alot more photos of the staff 'working' in my shop, even though both agencies had been out to my shop already. be prepared it is almost impossible to make money in thailand especially if you are competing against thai people. for a start you are going to be down 150 000thb per year just doing everything correctly with taxes, visas and work permit expenses.

my accountant at plan B will let you know. she has done a great job for me for 7 years now.

our current flag is pretty shitty, but it is our flag and it is our history. flakey c@#t$ want to change it, how about you go live somewhere where you like their flag?

sorry for the guy. for almost all of the guys I know the day they get their divorces they are happy not depressed.

you better check she actually wants to work. you probably will have a hard time getting a straight answer as she will probably just say what she thinks you want to hear. if she does not want to work then you are wasting your money. you need to ask her in a way that it looks like you don't mind what she wants to do. I got my girl a job when our boy started school, her response 'I have ferang, I don't need to work'

almost impossible to make money in Thailand. what ever you do keep your name off any business registration. if you are in any way associated with the business and get caught doing anything with the business you will have trouble. work permits are expensive and in most cases not worth the trouble. only invest the money if you are willing to loose it. better get your girl a job working for some other sucker who opened a business.

The labor dept describes work as "The exertion of energy or use of knowledge, whether for compensation or not". We are all violating labor laws by simply typing here.

"The exertion of energy or use of knowledge, whether for compensation or not". well that rules the thai's out then, as they can check the boxes on all of the above.

they don't have to pay for work permits and therefore don't have to work so hard. but seriously I have had some good thai staff.

"The 50 best-performing teachers will train the next group of participants."

Talking about dilution... lol

ha ha, well put. still wondering if all the tourist police now speak English. I read somewhere they were all to speak English in 6 months.

Thailand is still the most liveable country in the world that I have seen. cheap warm and flooded with girls willing to please you. having said that many people hit a hump, happened to me about year 7 of living here. I got sick of the way Thailand runs and how foreigners are treated. I almost left but after a while I weighed things up and it put things into perspective. it is great here. only thing that will result in me leaving will be taking my kids home to go to school. 15 years back home but I am sure I will be back as long as things don't change too much.

as long as they don't start bashing us for coming to Thailand to bang their mothers, daughters, sisters or wives I don't care what they do. actually I find it hard to believe they let us do it.

almost impossible to make money in Thailand. what ever you do keep your name off any business registration. if you are in any way associated with the business and get caught doing anything with the business you will have trouble. work permits are expensive and in most cases not worth the trouble. only invest the money if you are willing to loose it. better get your girl a job working for some other sucker who opened a business.

sorry man Thailand does not want you coming here to try to solve a problem that they don't want to admit exists. ontop of that the police may be involved and profiting of these activities. prediction is he wont achieve anything and may end up in a world of trouble.

you really need a thai accountant to help you do this. I just did the work permit for my manager and things are difficult without some local knowledge. I have used the same girl for 8 years and she is very reliable. this year it took 2 months to get the full 1 year non im visa and work permit (she said things were trick with the Bangkok bombing) be prepared it costs quite a lot of money. company I use is called Plan B. silly name I know but they know what they are doing.

well you have ignored most of the good advice here. getting finance in Thailand is difficult. often the terms are 10 year loan, 50percent deposit, 10 percent interest for foreigners. if you haven't listened to anyone else there is no point me trying either. think the borrowing to buy will stop you anyway as you cant borrow money to buy land you are not legally allowed to own.

people are saying in the long term you will save money by not having to rent but this is not completely correct. you need to pay cash for a place here as mortgages are very difficult to get especially as a western couple. better put that money into a rental property back in safe land and use the rent from that to pay your rent here. you will have a better chance of making some capital growth back in the west and can get a more solid rental return if you buy in a desirable location. (generally in highly populated cities and near the city center or coast)

please I say this again RENT RENT RENT. someone said for every successful buy a house there are 10 or more sob stories. why take that risk?

I am a big fan of trump but I am disappointed with this statement. flooding the European tinderbox with firearms can only be a bad idea. maybe he was just saying it to appeal to his American voters.

please please rent. so tired of foreigners loosing so much in Thailand. please please please. rents are so cheap. just get a proper long term lease and get it authorized by a lawyer. there is so much available you can dictate good terms. if things turn sour here you can just leave loosing a deposit not a whole house. I bought 2 houses here and it took me years to sell them. I thank the man upstairs that I broke even. if I had to cut and run I would have lost them.

I have heard estimates that there are approx. 30 000 units being completed per year in pattaya. I know people who own rental units who tell me rents have not increased in the last 5 years. one friend who has an apartment had to recently drop the monthly rental from 14000/month to 10000/month just to get someone in. more units being built and less tourists who do monthly rental coming. there has to be a decrease in rental return. rental is becoming so cheap in pattaya I wish I had not bought here.

Stamp out corruption!

Now let me see, where do they start, at the top and work their way down,

or at the bottom and work their way up?

Either way, it would take at least a couple of generations to stop what is

engrained in to the Thai society.

Even the longest trip starts with one step.

is it worth starting a journey that will never end? like many have said if they really wanted to stop it then there needs to be real jail terms. this in itself is almost impossible where people can buy their way out of going to jail.