prchunter

While this new law may not be for everyone, it might actually be a better opportunity then most think. Of course to play this financial game you need a min 3 mil usd min of net worth to play. Note that this will be a long term investment and I'm really just thinking out loud about this. I welcome discussions to adjust this model, but I will not respond to trolls. First off from my limited research locals prefer to buy land and build houses over buying condo's which are perceived by locals as expensive. (This is why it's difficult to sell 2nd hand Condo's even in prime Bangkok locations, but that's another topic). So land in prime areas are actually much more liquid then condos. Secondly people need to realize we are in a recession so despite Condo prices holding, land prices actually have fallen. Third point is the Thai Baht is actually at a multi year low. Many expect the baht to fall to around 42 to 1usd. As the world slowly recovers we might see 30 to 1 usd in 8-10 years time. That's a 40% gain. For the sake of math we will say 4% a year. The price of admissions is to invest 40 mil into something in thailand. This can be put into a stock investment for or a real estate fund. A basket of thai blue chip stock that yields cash dividends will net you somewhere in the neighborhood of 4% a year (PTT stock yields north of 7% so this is realistic). On top of that you can expect a 4-10% increase in share price per year just due to inflation. So you are looking at your 40mil investment netting 4% currency +4% div +2-5% capital increase = 10-13% per annum. The land itself let's just say you buy near Banga for another 40 mil. Land usually appreciates with inflation which historically has averaged 3.9% for the last 45 years. You are looking at 4%+3.9% for a steady 7.9% per year. For your 80 mil a blended return of 9%-10.5% a year. More if you get lucky with your land location for your stock picks. This is not for everyone but for a financial investor this is actually not a bad return for your efforts.

It really depends on if you have many friends in the country. Also how much money you can spend is always an issue (and affects the # of friends and girlfriends ????you can have.) In general it's going to be cheaper to live in Thailand vs. US by roughly a factor of 3. IE if a cup of java costs around 2 bucks in bangkok it's going to cost 6 in seattle.