Rodney H

Many thanks for your replies so far, appreciate it. I am in no hurry whatsoever to buy anything, and as some of you mentioned, it would be safer and more hassle-free, particularly in the short term, to rent. But I was just thinking that if I find something great that I can see myself living in for 20 plus years, I would have an asset at the end of those 20 years (regardless of its value), with no monthly rent to find, with the other option being owning no property and continuing to pay rent into my 70s after already paying out millions of Baht in rent over the previous 20 years. So for me, it seems renting would the better option for the first few years, but buying would make sense in the much longer run. In any case, there no rush to make any big decision right now : )

Hi there This is my first post on this forum, and I don’t have much experience of Thailand except for a couple of short holidays around 10 years ago. I am a 50 year-old Brit, and have been living and working in China for 15 years. I run a company there with another foreigner. I am planning to move to Thailand soon to live and work remotely. It’s now reached a point where I don’t need to be permanently in China to run the company day to day, and my work can be done remotely, except for maybe one or two visits back to China each year. I currently have 100,000 GBP sitting in a UK bank that has built up over the years. I am thinking of using around 70k of that money (so around 3.1M Baht) to buy a condo outright to live in, and not as an investment, as I plan to live there permanently and end up retiring there. If all continues to go well with my company in China, I would be taking a salary of 2,400 GBP net each month, hopefully until I retire in 10-15 years. So right now the plan is to travel to Thailand for 3-6 months, and rent during this period, to give me time to get a proper feel of the country and ensure it’s where I want to be, look at lots of property, and work out which city/region I want to based in permanently. I just wanted to share my plans with those who have more experience in this area, and see whether any of you have any better ideas than the one above, possible visa complications, whether I’ve missed any key points, and the main risks involved. Thanks for your time.