BKK condos - are there really so many empty and to rent ?

[wordchild]

23 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Did you try this? Did it work?

It seems in my condominium the staff behind the counter more or less work with one of the agents together. And I am pretty sure they get a commission from that agent. A few nice words and a smile won't compensate for thousands of THB commission...

i have tried and it has worked for me, in the past. but, i have to say that these days  it depends on the condo. Some condo managements , which are subsidiary to larger agency businesses ( eg CBRE , PLUS)  seem to have clamped down on the this practice and tried to get the front desk/condo managers  to refer all enquirers to the in-house agents.

nevertheless i helped a friend find a condo recently and we managed to get around the in-house agent and dealt directly with the owner. my friend got a pretty good deal.  All of this was aided via a 1000 baht tip pushed into the grateful hands of the condo manager. 

To put this in perspective; in my condo, the management team share (between 4 of them)  a bonus of a couple of thousand baht if they make a successful referral to an "approved" agent. so its not like they make a fortune! 

Edited May 4, 2020 by wordchild

[ChasingTheSun]

32 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

And then they see a farang and you get the farang price. ???? 

Good point to remember.

 

Only a Thai family member should be “seen” as making the offers and  doing the negotiating.

[saakura]

21 hours ago, dimitriv said:

In Bangkok there are 525,889 condos and houses with almost zero electricity usage. It doesn't mean that they are all for sale. Some are probably owned by people who do not use them.

 

 

 

Quite true. I live in a spacious 3 bedroom condo within walking distance of BTS thonglor, there are 3 units per floor and it is a very high rise building. One unit on my floor is vacant since the last 8 years i have been here, but it is cleaned thoroughly by an outsourced company twice a week. And 3 years ago, the owner spent over 1.5 million THB to completely renovate this vacant unit. He is quite friendly and proudly displayed it to me after renovation. His family use it for about a maximum of 10 days in a year. He is a textile export businessman who supposedly lives in a large villa near Chaengwattana and bought this unit for his teenage children to use when they are in this area, and has one more unit in Hua Hin for leisure. And as far as i know, the teenage children are not some spoilt brats, the son is doing engineering in a top university in Germany and the daughter is in an Ivy League college!

[tebee]

49 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

And then they see a farang and you get the farang price. ???? 

I'll send the wife - Chinese and a very hard bargainer !

[saakura]

11 hours ago, wordchild said:

generally speaking rents are not increased for good tenants, in my experience. though the landlord will try to revert to a higher rent, if possible, once a tenant has moved out.

prior to buying a unit in the same building we rented another unit for 5 years. we were on good terms with our landlord and i once asked him if he would ever put the rent up. he said he wouldn't do that , as far as he was concerned we were good tenants and he was happy for us to stay as long as possible. A friend of mine rented a unit in one of the older Bangkok condos for 15 years without the landlord ever even suggesting a rental increase; he even had the kitchen completely redone (at the landlords expense) during the tenancy. He had a spacious unit (in a well maintained building) with great river views and, in the later years of his occupancy,  he had an amazing rental deal compared to the market. He only moved out because he got moved to HK by his company where he now lives in a shoe box, for a multiple of the rent he was paying in BKK. 

For a multiple of the salary he was getting in Bangkok.

[saakura]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

And then they see a farang and you get the farang price. ???? 

Could be a polite way of saying that farangs are not welcome?

[Jcord1]

13 hours ago, wordchild said:

i would guess that the property market, in Bangkok, for both sellers and landlords is in for a difficult 2 or 3 years.

We have had massive overbuild and now a global economic shock. And this has come at a time when the Thai economy was looking increasingly vulnerable anyway.

 It always takes time for the property market  to adjust, its not like bonds or stocks where prices are highly visible and change daily. Sellers and landlords expectations will adjust down gradually as they realize they cannot meet their previous price targets. Those who are under no financial pressure will try to ride it out and put up with mid-term vacancy in anticipation of an eventual upturn. This is always stage one of a property downturn, a stand off between sellers and buyers (owners and renters).

Those who need too will start to break ranks and prices will gradually adjust down.

Since 1999, Thai property owners have come to believe that the good economic fundamentals the country enjoyed will eventually come to the markets rescue and the right strategy was to hold and wait any slowdown out. That strategy would have worked a number of times over the last 20 or so years.  In my opinion, it wont work this time (because the Thai economy is fundamentally in poor shape) and the market will come down both in terms of achievable rents and property prices.

But this will all take time. I would guess that the market will be in a downtrend for, at the least 2 or 3 years. 

For many this is not relevant. We own our property in Bangkok (purchased more than a decade ago) and have no intention of selling, despite my rather negative views on the market.

   

Yes I wouldn't buy something unless I was sure to live in it at least 10 years.  That might be the breakeven point.

 

I don't know why but many investor/owners prefer to hold out for the max rent, no matter how long it might sit empty.  Personally I like to rent to maintain flexibility in case I decided to move to a different area or different city.  Also, compared to Western countries, it seems to be much cheaper to rent here relative to the purchase price.  I guess part of that is no real estate tax here and higher building operating expenses in the West.

[SiSePuede419]

22 hours ago, dimitriv said:

In Bangkok there are 525,889 condos and houses with almost zero electricity usage. It doesn't mean that they are all for sale

True.

 

Some are probably owned by dead Farangs murdered by their Bargirl wives/girlfriends, who haven't figured out how to steal the property yet. ????

[OneMoreFarang]

9 hours ago, SiSePuede419 said:

True.

 

Some are probably owned by dead Farangs murdered by their Bargirl wives/girlfriends, who haven't figured out how to steal the property yet. ????

Good luck that all women who never worked in bars are all honest and they are not interested in money, gold, property... ???? 

[wordchild]

once you have narrowed your search down Prakard.com is a useful site to get to know. you can use it to search by area and by specific condo. These days there are many agents who post on there but there are also owners who use it as well as a direct route to the market. 

[BobbyL]

The fact that a lot of the new developments with small rooms but good facilities are going for nearly 1000THB per 1SQM is just absurd. 

 

A 32SQM room for around 30,000THB / month is like living in a hotel room. I would love to know who is actually renting these kind of places. 

 

Before we moved to our house we rented an 86SQM two bed for 36,000THB / month. It was built in 2012 not far from Asoke / Phetchaburi. 400 - 500THB per SQM is want the rental market here should be IMO.