How many Expats plans are on hold due to the property slow down?

[Pattaya46]

1 hour ago, baansgr said:

Tens of thousands of sellers and very few genuine buyers.

How do you know about this number ? 

Are you talking about the FB Marketplace ? Doesn't seem so big to me.

[Airalee]

40 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Here in Phuket, there are plenty of houses/condos for sale and they are not moving much at all

I was looking around (online) at condos in Phuket.  Don’t like the idea of the long term leases that seem so prevalent down there.

 

41 minutes ago, xylophone said:

have a couple of friends who tried to sell their houses here to no avail, although I would say that they were not keen on dropping their prices, but then again that seems to be a farang mindset and I do believe that many others will adopt this mindset to their detriment.

 

Well....you do know that they deserve that appreciation don’t you?  They all seem to be counting their money before it even sells all the while patting themselves on the back for being such financial geniuses.  Then...they want to double dip on the profit with the exchange rate difference now that their home currencies have fallen off a cliff.  Sure hope they like their homes more than I like my cash.

[deej]

2 hours ago, baansgr said:

But it's a true indicator of the market...Tens of thousands  of sellers and very few genuine buyers. 

^^^How true.

From experience Chiangmai.s market  whether rental or selling either houses or condo.s.

is a buyers market with very few buyers. 

Simply over supplied  to the  limit  .in all areas of Real Estate and grossly over priced too

And worse to follow .

No doubt about it

[baansgr]

4 hours ago, Pattaya46 said:

How do you know about this number ? 

Are you talking about the FB Marketplace ? Doesn't seem so big to me.

Pattaya, buy and sell, hot sale, condo sale etc.etc etc......over 100 groups, and thats just pattaya....and yes, tried to sell a friends condo not one reply, put ad to rent a house had 379 replies...

[kingdong]

2 hours ago, deej said:

^^^How true.

From experience Chiangmai.s market  whether rental or selling either houses or condo.s.

is a buyers market with very few buyers. 

Simply over supplied  to the  limit  .in all areas of Real Estate and grossly over priced too

And worse to follow .

No doubt about it

It,s  always the first thing that happens before a recession,the property market collapses.

[deej]

36 minutes ago, kingdong said:

It,s  always the first thing that happens before a recession,the property market collapses.

Yes. Its certainly a indicator

But 

As a rule.   Restaruants etc etc  are first to be  effected by a recession and first to recover  

Many thks for your reply????

 

[rumak]

On 11/27/2019 at 10:54 AM, baansgr said:

If anyone wants to see the true state of expat real estate in Thailand.  Join the 100 or so groups of RE on Facebook targeting over a million  people.  Post a condo,  land,  house for sale will be lucky to get one reply... Post you are looking to buy  and will receive hundreds if not thousands of replies

Ten years ago there were few houses to rent ( especially in our price range  12k/mo) .

We have had a good run but now almost impossible to get the news out.... with the thousands of houses and agents taking up all the ads.    Have never had to show to more than 2 or 3  people before renting,  but now i may have to hire an airplane with a banner to get the word out !

This is in CM,   btw

[ExpatOilWorker]

15 minutes ago, rumak said:

Ten years ago there were few houses to rent ( especially in our price range  12k/mo) .

We have had a good run but now almost impossible to get the news out.... with the thousands of houses and agents taking up all the ads.    Have never had to show to more than 2 or 3  people before renting,  but now i may have to hire an airplane with a banner to get the word out !

This is in CM,   btw

Interesting enough the Bangkok condo rental market is doing surprisingly well. I know a couple of landlords that have just recently rented their units out in less than a month. Mid-range market stuff at a decent price.

Could be the more people are renting, as buying seem to have mostly dried up.

[rumak]

5 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Interesting enough the Bangkok condo rental market is doing surprisingly well. I know a couple of landlords that have just recently rented their units out in less than a month. Mid-range market stuff at a decent price.

Could be the more people are renting, as buying seem to have mostly dried up.

I have seen many many posts on TV  with people saying where they stay the buildings are half empty and yet they  are building more condos everywhere.   Guess it depends who you talk to.

I have no experience in bkk................. but i certainly know what is going on in CM with house rentals.   Over 11 years we have had a 95% occupancy,  so must be doing something right.

That said, nothing stays the same forever.  My main point is that there are now LOTS more available,  which makes it much harder to find prospective tenants.

Since we also weed out about 80% before even showing i do assume that it will be harder to find good tenants

[ExpatOilWorker]

Just now, rumak said:

I have seen many many posts on TV  with people saying where they stay the buildings are half empty and yet they  are building more condos everywhere.   Guess it depends who you talk to.

I have no experience in bkk................. but i certainly know what is going on in CM with house rentals.   Over 11 years we have had a 95% occupancy,  so must be doing something right

It could also be that the demographics of tenants are swing more toward condo living. It was our parents generation to live the suburban dream in a house, but the younger generation today are not interested in green fingers and garden work. They chill out online.

[rumak]

31 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

It could also be that the demographics of tenants are swing more toward condo living. It was our parents generation to live the suburban dream in a house, but the younger generation today are not interested in green fingers and garden work. They chill out online.

not just the younger generation.   everyone that ever rented said how much they love the garden area.  "can i do this,  can i plant that?"    One tenant out of maybe 40 ever could be bothered to even water the plants.    What the heck is the world coming to  !   

[baansgr]

2 hours ago, rumak said:

Ten years ago there were few houses to rent ( especially in our price range  12k/mo) .

We have had a good run but now almost impossible to get the news out.... with the thousands of houses and agents taking up all the ads.    Have never had to show to more than 2 or 3  people before renting,  but now i may have to hire an airplane with a banner to get the word out !

This is in CM,   btw

Same in Pattaya...worse still, anything half decent with a pool are asking more than Central London...empty year after year...Bang Saray want 500 quid a month for a crappy old two bed house...dreamers...again empty year after year

[beautifulthailand99]

Whilst a lot of the opinions , observations are true for many posts one would do well to bear in mind that farang expats are a relatively small subset of the market which is of course dominated by Thais , Chinese, other Asians and to a lesser extent at the low market end Russians and of course the more bomb-proof, well pensioned nordic snow bird couples. If the location is good and the price is right it will sell. Farang houses in Nakon Nowhere or isolated in a rural idyll may be ultimately unsalable at a price that the owner would have thought it might have been worth. 

[ICELANDMAN]

I am a compulsive owner, if I want to live in a house for 10 or 20 years I prefer to be the owner even if indirectly with a lawyer, if we also calculate that the money to pay the rent is to dictate monthly to the cost of what I have paid a new house I don't see any convenience to stay in rent, if one day I decide to leave or I have not received the visa, no drama will put it on sale with an agent and I will recover at least half the price I have paid, my quality same owner live have also a price.

[KSwr7UDHyn]

On 11/27/2019 at 10:54 AM, baansgr said:

If anyone wants to see the true state of expat real estate in Thailand.  Join the 100 or so groups of RE on Facebook targeting over a million  people.  Post a condo,  land,  house for sale will be lucky to get one reply... Post you are looking to buy  and will receive hundreds if not thousands of replies

 

As a buyer, the last place I would look for real estate deals either in Thailand or the US is on Facebook. 

 

I would use the local real estate sites to get a rough idea or pricing and such and then I go out and walk the neighborhood, talk to people, go into buildings and ask if they have any properties available, etc.  [Disclaimer:  Wife does most of the talking, often asking me to wait outside so they don't get farang-fever and start driving up prices]

 

The prices being advertised online and what one can actually purchase (or rent) something for are two entirely different things.  

 

I haven't bought in Thailand (yet) but I have rented several times and I know I can always pound the pavement and get better deals.  I've (or we've) done it. 

 

And when I did real estate deals back in the US, I seldom bought anything that was on the MLS.  I always used wholesalers that got the deals before they made it onto the MLS.  Or, I did the grunt work myself identified properties, went to the city website and found the owner, reached out to the owner and told them I wanted to buy the property, etc. 

 

The number one rule in real estate INVESTING is you make your money when you buy, not when you sell.  If you're not buying the property at the right price, it's going to be very hard to make a good return on your investment. 

[KSwr7UDHyn]

On 11/27/2019 at 2:24 PM, baansgr said:

But it's a true indicator of the market...Tens of thousands  of sellers and very few genuine buyers. 

 

No, it's an indicator of an imperfect market with imperfect information. 

 

The reason Joe Farang thinks his condo is worth 5 million baht is because he doesn't know jack about real estate and he's using what other people have listed their property for and what the new condos are selling for as his guide.  He figured that if condos across the street are selling for 20% more than he paid for his, that his condo must be worth 20% more than what he paid for it. 

 

But he's WRONG!  That's not how the market works. 

 

The only price that matters is what price condos are actually transacting at.  If you have your condo on the market for 5 years at 5 million baht, that is not any sort of indication of where the market is at.

 

What is an indication of where the market is at is when Fritz Farang sold his condo two floors above you for 3.5 million baht. 

 

That's why in the US, you don't go by the price that the property is listed on the MLS.  You use "comps" or "comparable sales" in the area. 

 

But if the market had better data, you would see Joe Farang's condo sitting there for 5 years at 5 million and still unsold.  That would guide the next person to aim lower.  And people would keep aiming lower until they hit a price that their condo sold for, and then that becomes the new market price. 

 

The problem is there is no good source for pricing information or sales data. 

[KSwr7UDHyn]

On 11/28/2019 at 3:48 PM, beautifulthailand99 said:

Whilst a lot of the opinions , observations are true for many posts one would do well to bear in mind that farang expats are a relatively small subset of the market which is of course dominated by Thais , Chinese, other Asians and to a lesser extent at the low market end Russians and of course the more bomb-proof, well pensioned nordic snow bird couples. If the location is good and the price is right it will sell. Farang houses in Nakon Nowhere or isolated in a rural idyll may be ultimately unsalable at a price that the owner would have thought it might have been worth. 

 

Yes, what do they estimate, 2 million foreigners living in Thailand, out of 70 million Thais?  I'm not sure on that number but I've heard it thrown around. 

 

Out of that 2 million, how many are even in a financial situation where they can afford to buy a condo or house for cash?  Let's say 500,000???  And if that seems too low, how about we throw in the fact that many of the foreigners that live in Thailand and could afford to buy, don't plan on living here long enough to want to buy.  I think that would get us down to 500,000 or so, right? 

 

I mean, we haven't even dug into farangs buying homes in their wife's name so that land is not even his to resell.

 

So, farangs would represent less than 1% of Thailand's potential buyers (about 0.7%). 

 

But, let's be fair, not all 70 million Thais are over 18, and most will be married when buying, so, let's bring that down to 25 million potential buyers. 

 

We're 2% of the overall market? 

 

I don't think you can define what Thai real estate market is like based on 2% of the market.  That's not even a good representative sample since we skew much older (and die much sooner, thus forcing sales) and can't own the land.    

 

 

[Tomahawk21]

On 11/24/2019 at 9:15 AM, SEAsia Traveler said:

RENT

if you buy a property in Thailand buy it as a home, not an investment like you may in UK. then if when you sell it if you make money great and if you lose money, its only money you may of spent on renting a similar property anyway.

[URMySunshine]

On 11/25/2019 at 12:09 AM, DaRoadrunner said:

When China sneezes, the whole world could catch a cold.

Very prophetic sadly.

[fhickson]

property ownership is over rated.

 

its possible to create wealth this way, but it takes a LONG time and life usually gets in the way as multi generation households go out of fashion.

 

in my opinion its a pride of ownership myth created by big banks who collect usually lifetime interest payments on loaned money.

 

 

[HashBrownHarry]

On 11/24/2019 at 10:23 AM, BritManToo said:

Brexit will never happen.

Even if it does, I can register as a permanent resident until the end of 2020.

It happened!

[Isaan sailor]

I built a very nice house in Isaan. No way I could get more than 25% of what I paid for it.  I see it as retirement house.  And because my Thai wife is considerably younger than me—she will probably live there long after I’m gone.  After all, it’s built in her village.  And yes, I have a pre-nup on the house, plus a renewable lease on the land...

[URMySunshine]

On 11/30/2019 at 10:59 AM, KSwr7UDHyn said:

 

No, it's an indicator of an imperfect market with imperfect information. 

 

The reason Joe Farang thinks his condo is worth 5 million baht is because he doesn't know jack about real estate and he's using what other people have listed their property for and what the new condos are selling for as his guide.  He figured that if condos across the street are selling for 20% more than he paid for his, that his condo must be worth 20% more than what he paid for it. 

 

But he's WRONG!  That's not how the market works. 

 

The only price that matters is what price condos are actually transacting at.  If you have your condo on the market for 5 years at 5 million baht, that is not any sort of indication of where the market is at.

 

What is an indication of where the market is at is when Fritz Farang sold his condo two floors above you for 3.5 million baht. 

 

That's why in the US, you don't go by the price that the property is listed on the MLS.  You use "comps" or "comparable sales" in the area. 

 

But if the market had better data, you would see Joe Farang's condo sitting there for 5 years at 5 million and still unsold.  That would guide the next person to aim lower.  And people would keep aiming lower until they hit a price that their condo sold for, and then that becomes the new market price. 

 

The problem is there is no good source for pricing information or sales data. 

The firesales on the condo notice boards are good as any to see the direction of travel. 

[URMySunshine]

On 2/20/2020 at 6:12 PM, Isaan sailor said:

I built a very nice house in Isaan. No way I could get more than 25% of what I paid for it.  I see it as retirement house.  And because my Thai wife is considerably younger than me—she will probably live there long after I’m gone.  After all, it’s built in her village.  And yes, I have a pre-nup on the house, plus a renewable lease on the land...

If you count your property purchase as 'throwaway money' and in any sale any return (even if it is a loss) is a bonus then you won't go far wrong. If you can't take that approach financially DON'T BUY !

[Isaan sailor]

2 hours ago, URMySunshine said:

If you count your property purchase as 'throwaway money' and in any sale any return (even if it is a loss) is a bonus then you won't go far wrong. If you can't take that approach financially DON'T BUY !

Well stated. When you come to retire in Thailand—you must realize all Hell can break loose—Wuhan virus, high exchange rates, hordes of Chinese and Indian tourists.  Make sure you keep enough dough in the home country—so you can bail out whoever you’ve had enough.