I'm not sure who you are quoting with your "Thais don't want them" comment regarding condominums. I certainly never said that. Over 76% of Bangkok condos are owned by Thais. Those condos were built primarily for Thais to buy them--that was the 'business model'. As I said in my previous post, my sold-out Bangkok condo has plenty of foreign quota still available, so it is probably right around that 76% average of Thai-owned. When Lumpini and Sansiri first came to Pattaya and built their very successful, massive projects, Lumpini Park Beach and The Base, they were marketed specifically to Bangkokians as weekend getaways. Sansiri's initial sales office was in Bangkok and when the Pattaya sales office was opened for The Base the project was already mostly booked--by Bangkokians. Most of the condos were small--28 to 35 sqm--ideal for short, weekend getaways. Sansiri's brochure even had the tagline, 'It's the Weekend', and it was filled with images of yuppy Bangkokians frolicking in Pattaya, with not a single pic of a farang in the brochure. So, Thais buy condos, some to live in, some to rent out as an investment, some to use as getaway places, and some for other reasons. When we bought our first Bangkok condo at Lumpini Makkasan we met a Thai lady who had bought a condo in the project specifically to use it during the week, as her young child was enrolled in one of the private schools in that immediate area. Their main home was in the Bangkok suburbs. Your '1.64 million vacant or unoccupied housing units in Thailand' statistic has already been bandied about by another poster. The key words there are 'vacant' and 'unoccupied'. Neither necessarily mean actively on the market for sale. That figure is around 600,000 nationwide--quite a bit smaller, by over 1 million units. And, since you were in the housing business, you will well-know that what is happening in one part of a country does not necessarily translate to other parts. Your statement, 'Why buy a used condo when there are so many new ones', however, makes me question whether you really were in the housing business. You should readily know and understand the whittling down process I have described when a buyer inputs the first three basics of a property search: price of property, size of property, and area of property. Buyers buy both new and used condos because they are buying what fits their needs best. We have sold used condos to Thais. There may be a lot of new condos but, once again, the number drops to, in many cases, only a handful when the search process starts with the 3 basics. Example. There are thousands of new and used condos in Bangkok. When we sold the too-small 24 sqm Lumpini-Makkasan studio condo, we went looking for a replacement. Our 3 basics were: Price: around 6MB or less. Size: 1 bedroom condo, no studios, at least 40 sqm. Area: Closer to Phetchaburi MRT station and Airport Rail Link. From the thousands of Bangkok new and used condos for sale, we initially narrowed down our search to 3 projects that were a short walk to the MRT station//ARL. We looked at condos for sale at the 3 projects and eliminated 2 of the projects. We decided the third project offered the most value for our money and we liked the unit layouts better. After eliminating condos in that project that were too small, too expensive, or had sitting tenants, we were left with maybe 10 choices. So, from thousands to less than a dozen, and we bought a used condo, not a new one. The whittling down works both ways--for buyer and seller. At the end of August we sold a 3 bedroom/3 bath pool villa in the suburbs of Pattaya for 5.5MB--we had listed it at 5.9MB. Sold it to the first buyer to view it, a Thai--yes, Thais buy used houses. How could we manage to find a buyer when there are 600,000 active properties for sale in Thailand? Easy answer--there are not 600,000 3 bedroom/3 bath pool villas priced under 6MB for sale where we were selling ours. Turns out there were about a half-dozen or so on the market at that time. As a builder, you should know, if you're building, say, suburban 4-bedroom ranch houses, your competition isn't the builder doing inner-city studio lofts. It's how many other suburban ranch houses are also going up--and, in your area, not across the country. As for 'making a bad decision' in buying a condo here, not in our experience. We've bought and sold 20 or so, all at a profit, in Rayong, Bangkok, and Pattaya. Recently I checked a number of the projects where we had owned foreign quota seaview condos in Pattaya. The prices were all above what we had sold our similar size/floor condos for. None of the above changes my previous post. Thais are not being priced out of the market by foreign buyers--in most places, including Bangkok, the majority of the buyers are Thai. Also, a foreigner buying a condo in Thailand pays on average 4.7 to 5.1 MB, whereas a Thai first-time condo buyer buys condos in the 2 to 3MB range--so, again, different price points, not really competing with each other. The problem, once again, is not housing stock or buyer competition. The problem is too many Thais not earning enough money to purchase even the cheapest property. This problem is not unique to Thailand, by the way. It is also being seen in the US and Europe. Governments, of course, could be doing much more with programs to assist younger buyers with their first home purchase.
