DonTron

Property should be thought of as a place to live in and not as some speculative investment

Heheh its clear that you are not an investor - some of us have made a lot of money investing in properties here in Pattaya - the past 4-5 years the market have been really good.

Honestly I’m getting a bit tired of all this "crisis" talk. Everybody is whining about how hard the marked is and that nothing is moving etc. but if thats the case where are all the cheap properties? Currently in US and Europe. us investors profit greatly from being able to buy properties really cheap (sometimes 60-70% below market value) and then selling them again when the marked is high.

The Pattaya property prices are still very high and some of them even growing. I been following the Bangkok marked where some projects have started to lower the prices, but I am still waiting for the Pattaya prices to drop, which they haven’t. And if anyone hear about projects or people who lower their prices, then please contact me.

- DonTron

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough"

This depends very much on which condo price range you want to enter into.

I found that the high end condos (rental from 50,000 to 85,000 THB month) are less work and more cashflow than having a whole bunch of cheap end ones, even if they take a bit longer to rent.

Their prices are crap, their service is crap and the food is horrible (and meat from their russian section made my friend sick)

Actually our dear Prince "Frede" (as we call him back home) used to visit Pattaya when he was younger, but it was not the ECO village heheheh

Best:

1) Insomnia Gentlemens Club - because girls are hot, service is great and they got some interesting "concepts" upstairs ;-D

2) Happy a gogo - because their "nud_e" show is great and very energetic

3) Heaven Above a gogo - because their show is great and they have really hot girls

Worst:

1) Pinky Girl a gogo - because.. well, look at the girls and you will understand

2) Super Girl a gogo - because the two doormen looks like scarface and acts like killer mafia guys

3) Windmill a gogo - because.. eeeuuuuu yack!

P.S Being in debt is NOT a crime!

No, but running away from debt is the act of a loser!

£40,000 is nothing, peanuts - its easy do dig yourself out of that, and not worth running away for.

Try digging yourself out of £1,2 mill, then you can start whining.

Ocean 1 Tower has stopped construction - I dont think its gonna start ever.

The other large building close to the Sea (Jomtien Beach) is the new ViewTalay and that one is very much under construction with a lot of noise and dust.

I am not really sure what it is you are trying to say here FarangFatal?

Are you for or against real estate investments?

All I can say when it comes to investments is this:

Stocks/Shares investments

- When you buy them, they are worth exactly what you paid for them, no more no less

- You can do absolutely nothing to make them to up in value (other than pray)

- They give you no monthly passive income

Real Estate investments

- When you buy them, they might be worth a LOT more than you paid (if you know what you are doing)

- You can do lots of things to make them to up in value (paint the house, build a garage, put in a pool, furnish it nicer etc.)

- They give you a nice fat monthly passive income

You can probably guess where my money is

There is one thing that usually helps a lot on these types of crime areas... Video Surveillance

We had an area in Copenhagen where several gang types were selling drugs and beating up / knifing innocent party-goers just cause they got bored. The police didnt seem to bother much so some citizens put up 2 "fake" cameras and the violence and drug selling hasnt been back since.

These cams cost a few hundred baht and are battery driven, and they look amazingly real moving right and left, blinking their little LED light. But they are totally fake, they dont even have a lense

Thanks for the info Pdaz - I also had 3 years with bad haircuts here - and it dosnt matter if its done by a girl or a katoey, most salons are really dirty or really bad. In the Royal Garden salon where they have high prices, the hair of 40 people are lying in piles on the floor and their razors/tools are really dirty.

So I will definately go visit Bruce Alan

Where can we find real Halloween parties in Pattaya?

You know, places that gives free drinks to everyone who is dressed up or have some kind of themed events etc.

(and no, I dont mean 10 gogo girls with extra lipstick)

Anyone know?

I have to agree with fresnoboy - looking at the way they manage their so called "scheduled bus service" does not leave much hope for a monorail.

Most places they are real LCD-TVs but after management recieves the electric bill they usually order the staff to turn it off. Of cause we all know that a LCD-TV almost uses no electricity compared to aircons, but in the mind of most Thais this is a real power eater.

And electricity really is getting expencive here - in our office we pay a monthly bill of 21,500 THB for an office of 18 people with computers, lights and 3 large aircon units (new Fuji Aircons with energysaving). To me thats way way too much for a country like Thailand.

I have seen "fake" LCDs thou - you can buy plastic copies of LCD TVs that look 99% like the real thing. They are supposed to be used in showrooms for houses and condos, but some people put it in their shop for "show-off" (says my assistant)

I told them several times - I even pointed the guys out (in front of McDonals) because I couldnt even get a McChicken without getting offered McCoke

The Tourist police didnt care at all - so I wonder what made them arrest the guys this time

Anyway I am HAPPY that they are gone so I can get my BigMac without McJabba

Yesterday I saw a protestor girl on Beach Road... she was holding a big sign in the air saying "WELCOME MASSAGE!!"

I tried the breakfast at Amari Tower (on 2nd floor) - that was really good. Their Eggs Benetict is to die for!

(600-800 pr. person off menu)

I only know one place, thats a store inside TukCom (IT CIty on South Pattaya Road)

There are 50 shops that all sell copies, but there is one on the 4th floor (the software floor). Once you come up go around the escalator to the other side, and then its one of the shops against the left wall.

I bought World of Warcraft there and their registration keys worked.

The smoke? It was must me after eating super spicy GangPa, sorry about that :-)

And its actually pronounced and written "นาเกลือ" or "Na Kluae" and means Salt Field.

(Na = Field, Kluae = Salt)

Its common for us farangs to just write "Naklua" even thou its incorrect.

But ok, people also call Köln for Colone and København for Copenhagen etc.

Waaaoouu - Waterfront will be GOLD! - Time to invest

170 for a beer?

I once paid 500 for a bucket of ice cubes at FashionClub - It was served by some very hot coyoties so I paid with a big smile

AVG AntiVirus also said no problems.

What virus scanner are you using?

We recently bought the 6Mbit down / 1 Mbit up line from C.A.T. and no matter what they did they couldn’t get it above 2Mbit.

Here is why....

C.A.T. has their lines and cross points in SOUTH Pattaya and here you can actually get 6Mbit, but if you live in Center, North, East or Jomtien - then you can maximum get 2Mbit down and 1Mbit up (some really lucky people have got it a bit above 2Mbit thou). So fact is they will happily sell you the 6Mbit line, but only give you 2Mbit.

Another point is that C.A.T. often will bring the cable to your house. According to their own technicians this cable is too thin and too bad quality for even 2Mbit internet (my electrician confirmed that). If you ask them, they will replace the cable against a large fee (approx 10.000) but they wont tell you which cable they will put instead.

And last thing, C.A.T. have no line security. Let me explain this as easy as I can. Once in a while our modem will throw us off C.A.T.s line and on to the servers of either LEK Hotel, Aiyara Hotel or other exciting things. Once we are there our persistent IP numbers (which we paid for) are all screwed up, but something else happens too - I get FULL ACCESS to the servers and computers of the Hotel. And let me tell you, there is no security on these servers, not even passwords. So if anyone want to see the accounting and bookings of Aiyara and other hotels, or want to know what’s on their guests notebooks - just let me know

We confronted C.A.T. with this security breach and they even confirmed that this was a big problem for them. As their technician said "we lack the skill to fix it", never thought I should hear a Thai say that.

So what alternatives are there...

TOT telecom is, like the word says in German "TOT!!" (dead). You will never get this above 1Mbit or even 512Kbit. Also they got virtually no service or technicians and they really dont care about their costumers at all. TOT is just a dead fish which you should never ever get.

TT&T is at the moment the best. We bought the 6Mbit there and it really IS a 6Mbit. I can get download speeds over 400 kb/sec which is really good for Thailand. In fact I just downloaded 26 Gigabytes in just 5 days - and that’s impressive!

The only downside of TT&T is that its not always up. We got at least 6-8 hours of downtime each month. In Europe this would be considered unacceptable, in Thailand its considered REALLY GOOD! :-)

So be careful what you pick for your Internet.

I just had Mr. John (british guy) from Jackies Properties do a house extention plus extra bathrooms and a lot of other stuff for me, and he do TOP QUALITY!

He is a bit more than the Thais but you dont have to worry if they screw you on quality or material cause John is 100% trustworthy, reliable, punktual and he dont stop before the job is done to your satisfaction.

Johns Number is... 0891632946

If you want to inspect his work, send me a PM and you can come by and check the quality.

Port Blocking / Traffic Slow down on TT&T??

I use TT&T and download with over 400 kb/sec on BitTorrent.

There is no port blocking or slow down. Not if you set it up correctly

(if you like me dont know how, call Liberty Computer and get Khun Jo out to fix it - he is totally hardcore to these things)

Leave them alone - they take good care of the muslim tourists and they are good costumers in the mass make-up production judging from the 2cm makeup they all wear

And if you want to arrest people in Pattaya for prostitution, BUILD SOME REALLY BIG JAILS!