Buying A Condo In Bangkok - Advice

[thaigene2]

Did anyone check out any old condo in BKK that are 15+ years old? even if those are 5-star (or used to be 5-star), I wonder what they are like now. It seems like everybody is looking at new development, but what happen to those old buildings? Remember, you don't have any gain until you sell the property. If the old condo are in such condition that you can not easily sell it, or you would not live in it yourself, what good is it? buy it with cash up front and then collect rent only to recover your investment cost?

Scott123,

Good point.....there are many like that....but there are also a few that are otherwise......i bought a unit at Taiping Towers, (Ekamai Road) more than twenty years ago, now the apartment can command rental of Baht 50,000-60,000/month giving me a return of 30% on my original cost and can command a resale value of Baht 8 million, a possible capital gain of Baht 6 million......the beauty of this place, (possibly the first residential condo built in Bangkok), is structured with four bedroom units with the area of 250 square metres which is rare in Bangkok now.

twenty years ago i also got another unit at Ploenchit, beautiful location, presently commands annual return of 20% but capital gain of not more than one-fold.....this is due to small condo with only twenty co-owners but no forceful management......

from the past investment on my condo units in Bangkok and Pataya.....only 10% i regret of having bought them......one is a long-term lease of 30 years on the rajdamri road.....most tenants would not renew the tenancy because of the bad management.....another longterm lease unit at rajaprasong road turns out to be extremely successful with good management....few gaps of vacancy period......another bad one was bought while under construction and was denied to view the structure of the unit and found out later on when completed that my unit is partially obstructed by another building. I then realised why they refused to let me look at the location of the floor before concluding the contract. Though this condo is the best any buyer could ever hope for but the unit that I bought have been vacant by more than six months. I bought another unit in the same condo. The unit is facing the park and now giving an annual return of 7% and a possible capital gain now of 15%. The future gain of this unit should compensate my dud unit. Scott123 is right, once you got a few duds you are stuck with, it is painful and would feel disgusted with your bad judgement. Unlike stocks, you can bury your pain by making a quick sale.

The lesson from the baddies is that not only location, location and location for the condo investment but also the longterm quality of the management....i would avoid those developers/majority owners with aims of quick profits who couldn't careless of their longterm reputation and those condos with less than 100 co-owners. With less number to sharing costs and no economy of scale, they tend to face higher maintenace cost but with lesser efficiency. I tend to go to the condos with some western and Japanese interests. Another lesson is never to rely on the sales talk on the unobtrusive view. The pain of the baddies always tells me to take their words only at face value.

What an excellent post. Wish we had more of these. Thanks Irene.