Airalee

I hope so too. I love economic crashes. Both the GFC (housing bubble) and Covid were very profitable for me.

I have always agreed to that and if you check my posting history, you will see that I am always in favor of renting over buying 99% of the time and even say that as an owner. I got lucky with my purchase. There aren’t many condos similar to mine.

When I bought my condo, banks paid only 1-2% on long term CDs. I guess we will see how long that 5% CD rate stays around. The developer where I bought rents the same units (lower floors) for ฿49,000. I bought at a steep discount (bought a contract from someone who couldn’t close during covid) 5% on 8,000,000 wouldn’t cover my rent.

I’m just using what they have already done in the past in order to speculate what they might do in the future. You too are speculating but taking the opposite approach with regards to grandfathering the deposit requirements. They could raise it to a billion baht and send everybody packing. But they benefit more from money being brought in from outside the country to increase their gdp rather than just trying to increase exports or increase the velocity of money within the country. “Be rid of him” and the condo and car gets sold and then very quickly, millions of baht (10+ million for myself) leave the country. “Let’s be honest”….Do you really think they want that? I doubt it. Besides…later in life, instead of getting money for condos and cars, they get it for healthcare. They do after all bill themselves as a “hub” for healthcare tourism. Like I say…if history repeats (and it very well might)….they will grandfther the pensioners in. I’m sure they (the government) would prefer to keep the 800,000 in the bank than see it be repatriated back to the west. Hello! Reserve Ratios! You make it sound like they’re going to bum rush everybody to the exit. Would you care to step across the border (gambling is illegal in Thailand) and make a wager? Put your money where your mouth is.

Including all the LTR categories, there have only been 6,000ish visas issued in 28 months (from Sept 22 until Dec 2024). If it wan’t declining, there would be no need to ease the requirements. “As of the end of 2024, the BOI has already granted LTR visas to more than 6,000 applicants. Europe leads the list with 2,500 recipients, followed by the United States (1,080), Japan (610), China (340), and India (280).” https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/thailand-approves-update-of-long-term-resident-ltr-visas-criteria-and-conditions-to-attract-a-wider-range-of-foreign-experts-investors-and-executives-302351256.html#:~:text=As of the end of,to more than 6%2C000 applicants. Thailand desperately needs people to buy all the unsold condos and many more are still under construction. “In 2023, the unsold units of residential real estate in the eastern region of Thailand grew by approximately 14.3 percent compared to the previous year. In that same year, the number of unsold residential units in the country amounted to over 356.77 thousand units.” https://www.statista.com/statistics/1290951/thailand-growth-of-unsold-residence-units-by-region/ In Bangkok alone, there were approximately 85,000 unsold condos as of mid 2023 and there are countless projects still under construction and the sales have actually slowed down since then. https://www.bangkokpost.com/property/2928811/condo-market-subdued-in-q4

I agree. It could very well go up. But the last time they raised it, people who were already getting retirement renewals using ฿ in the bank were grandfathered in at the lower amount. If they do raise it, I doubt it would go above the bank deposit insurance threshold of ฿1,000,000 as many people wouldn’t want to have the additional exposure along with the fact (as you state) that putting money in a 3rd world bank doesn’t seem prudent. For now, I think they’ll just take what they can get. They obviously didn’t get many people signing up for the “wealthy pensioner” visa where one needs to show a $40,000 annual income which is why I suppose they eased up on the requirement of showing $80,000 income level for two years prior to applying.

I found the opposite on Tinder. Most were on the game. Next worse was Thaifriendly and the one with the most civilians (as you call them) was Thaicupid.

Two of the biggest gold diggers I met were nurses. One even had a friend warn me of said nurses intentions and informed me that she was just looking for a Farang because she had 2 million baht in debt from a failed business venture. My experience has been that the women with the government, nursing and teaching jobs have easier access to loans and therefore are carrying the highest debt loads.

Even when you haven’t known the answers, you provide far better tax advice than these so called professionals.

Clear as mud So then what if you pay in dollars? I can choose baht or USD at my hospital. Again…clear as mud Ok….so the person offering his advice is essentially saying “do your own homework” Why hire him? Makes no sense. Perhaps Carden should have cleared that up then? The professional didn’t think of doing some legwork to find out more? Some professional 🙄 Clear as mud. I certainly wouldn’t hire these guys.

Ouch

I’d prefer to hear the details laid out explicitly by the government rather than an accountant who would most likely want to charge you a large chunk of money for his/her interpretation of the law that may or may not be correct.

Lower wage workers actually had incomes that were more than double what they were when accounting for unemployment insurance “Unemployed Americans will continue receiving $300 in federal money in addition to their weekly state unemployment checks.” https://www.debt.org/blog/covid-19-unemployment-benefits/ And rent moratoriums on top of that. Gee…ya think this might have contributed to inflation? Don’t even need to talk about 2% mortgages driving up housing costs. How about the 4 star hotels the immigrants were housed in? And the generous cash payments to the undocumented….aka illegal….immigrants? All while the homeless population in the US continued to rise. No mention of all the billions of dollars worth of military equipment left behind? ”More than $7.1 billion in U.S.-funded military equipment was in the possession of the Afghan government when it fell to the Taliban in August 2021 amid the withdrawal, according to a Defense Department report published last August. Though more than half of it was ground vehicles, it also included more than 316,000 weapons worth almost $512 million, plus ammunition and other accessories.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-weapons-afghanistan-taliban-kashmir-rcna67134 Had the Obama/Biden regime not handed out student loans like candy during their time in office, encouraging so many people to go into debt for an unnecessary degree, this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. Those degrees were more detrimental to the children in the long run rather than helpful or useful. High schools should have never gotten rid of shop classes and professions such as plumbing, hvac, electricians and other building trades should have been held in higher esteem than the stupid useless degrees many students pursued. How much does a gallon of gas cost now? How much have peoples electric and gas utility bills increased in the last 4 years? How’d that “winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated” work out? LOL!

India and many countries in Africa aren’t too happy with the Bill and Melinda gates foundation when their children were used as guinea pigs for vaccine trials on minors with loopholes used to evade the informed consent laws. I guess that you can say that Bill Gates should go to jail also? https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1205&context=annlsurvey

He certainly does have quite an arrogant look about him. Thankfully I’ve never heard him speak.

That has nothing to do with the post I was responding to. But nice loaded question anyways. Do you feel a Thai working as a cashier at tesco deserves to have a home, a car, a family and take a one week vacation somewhere different once a year? Or must they live in a fan room, with 4 of their friends to be able to eat some rice at the end of the day?

“If voting made a difference, they'd make it illegal.” -attributed to many different people

Alex Soros and Chelsea Clinton 😄

Thais like McDonalds too. And Pizza Hut and KFC etc. The only reason they’re eating a 50 baht Thai dish is because they can’t afford a 200 baht Thai seafood dish. In some ways Thais have it easier (an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables for cheap or even free from the neighbors). In some ways Americans have it easier. Have you seen how nice some section 8 apartments are? I ran across a really nice apartment complex when I was in university but nope….couldn’t rent there. It was for poor people. Of course, in Appalachia it’s a bit different. That’s poor. Not Spike Lees version of the inner city poor. How many Americans are living like a school teacher in Issan? I have met some that still bathe from a cistern and just recently had flushing toilets installed. They cook outside over charcoal. They don’t even have windows in their homes. That’s middle class. Poor live in corrugated metal shacks or bamboo with teak leaf roofs. Where many poor Americans kill themselves financially is that they 1. Don’t cook at home. Don’t bring a lunch to work. It’s all grub hub and door dash for most of the urban poor. They won’t even walk their fat asses to the McDonald’s or Subway that you talk about. 2. Won’t get a roommate or live at home with their parents. They all have to have their own place. That one way is how the Asian, Mexican, Central Americans etc. get ahead. 3. Eat too damn much. 4. Spend too much on alcohol and drugs (mostly cannabis) 5. Finance cars that they can’t afford and if from the hood…buy rims. You can even rent rims for your car in the hood. No shortage of Bimmers, Benz and Lexus in Compton. 6. Spend too much on Air Jordans and other BS fashion accessories. Second hand shops are for the urban hipsters from upper middle class families who find it fashionable to slum it. Poor people in America are living large. And they still want their student loans forgiven. I’d love to drop some inner city hood rat in Bannok Thailand and see how he or she (or it) copes.

I know Alex Soros was born in New York. It was meant to be a tongue in cheek commentary on billionaire influence in politics. It’s no different on either side of the political aisle. I don’t vote myself because I don’t believe in choosing “the lesser of two evils”. I do know one thing, however….leftists such as yourself are entirely dishonest. And…fyi…the proper term is “couldn’t care less”

I’m being a little more proactive only because the government has been clear as mud on what their plans are and there has been zero communication between them and the expats/retirees here. And as you say, they have us by the balls. It’s no secret that their economy is in the sh*tter so it is to be expected that they’ll use us as tax donkeys. Of course the pensioners won’t be paying anything due to tax treaties but I still have a decade to go before I tap my social security and the way that Thailand taxes capital gains….no thanks. Most of those pensioners aren’t contributing anything to the economy anyways. Sure….they may have bought their Issan wives houses and cars but as the saying goes…what have you done for us lately. I’m currently in Danang and have also been zeroing in on condos/apartments although I haven’t decided as they are on an apartment building spree here so there will be a lot of nice new places to choose from for much less than Thailand. I have already replaced one physician and will replace others as necessary. Of course, healthcare is better in Thailand, but it’s even better in Japan so if there are any surgeries needed in the future (knock on wood), I’ll fly there instead of back to Thailand. I won’t even need to rent a condo back in Thailand as I can just stay at my girlfriends place rent free. The view isn’t as nice, but it will do. I’ll sell my car as I’ve already checked “driving the Maehongson loop in a convertible sports car” off my bucket list and as I won’t be doing any traveling there anymore, I’ll just take a taxi, bts or walk wherever I go. No more tips either. I’ll also purchase all my clothing, electronics, toiletries and everything else here in Vietnam (or back in the US), bring plenty of snacks etc back with me to Thailand and become a complete miser in Thailand. All my eating out will be done in other countries and I will cook at home while in Thailand and all travel etc will be outside Thailand also. I’ll be one of those guys living on ฿20,000/month….or less. Starve the beast! See you in Danang! 😁

Why not a new King and Queen?

Nope. Which is why I’m currently in Vietnam and am meeting with a Real Estate agent when I return to Bangkok to discuss the sale of my condo and repatriating all my assets back to the US.