Best Investment In North Thailand?

[jaideeguy]

Just wondering what the TV consensus is for a 5 to 10 yr investment in the CM area, especially considering recent and ongoing instability in the country.

condo in CM [for rental income] or would consider other area, good rice land available for 120k bhatt/rai, or house [for rental income] in mooban. Those options are the first that come to mind, but i would consider others, if low risk.

Your comments welcome......

[Gary A]

Just wondering what the TV consensus is for a 5 to 10 yr investment in the CM area, especially considering recent and ongoing instability in the country.

condo in CM [for rental income] or would consider other area, good rice land available for 120k bhatt/rai, or house [for rental income] in mooban. Those options are the first that come to mind, but i would consider others, if low risk.

Your comments welcome......

Taking into consideration that you can own nothing except a condo within the 49 percent farang ownership allowance, that makes the decision much simpler. At this point I wouldn't even invest in a condo unless I liked it and planned to live in it.

[chownah]

120k baht for rice land!!!! Think about it.......if you took 120k baht and put it into a financial instrument you could assuredly get 4% these days...the yield on this would be 4,800 baht......if you bought the land and rented it out to a farmer you would get less than half of this......if you think you can farm rice yourself then I suggest you find some perfectly suitable rice land for 80,000 baht per rai and proceed.....although I don't think even at this price you could really turn a good profit growing rice.......you could work and worry alot and then in a good year you might make a small profit compared to a straight paper investment.

Buying land because it will appreciate in value over time MIGHT be a good investment but better to think of it this way and just forget making any money off of growing rice. I guess what I'm trying to say is that 120k land is not primarily rice land because growing rice will not support that price...not even close.

Chownah

P.S. Another way to look at it is that if growing rice could support a land value of 120k baht per rai then ALL rice land would be priced at 120k baht......or more.

Chownah

Edited June 1, 2007 by chownah

[astral]

I would suggest you invest your money at home and use part of the income to rent.

I am deadly serious about that!!

The exchange rate my look good at the moment, but bear in mind it was 25baht/US$ until 10 years ago, it hit 55.7 on the 12th Jan 1998.

It now rumbles along at 34-45 but only because the US$ is weak.

If you do invest money in LOS you should be prepared to walk away from it.

[chanchao]

Honestly, who in his right mind would INVEST in Thailand at this moment in time? (Or, any moment in time perhaps).

Typical case of 'high risk, low return'.

Buy a condo and then try to rent it out? That's ludicrous unless you found a very specific, very good deal. So if you were to do it then I'd only consider VERY well established and well appointed buildings, and in the Chiang Mai area you can probably count those buildings on the fingers of one hand. Think the one near the Big Market next to Nakorn Ping bridge. That one qualifies. And Lanna 3 perhaps, and a few more. Go have a look at everything else cheaper than that, and what it looks like in a couple years of use. Of course there's basically no actual need for condominiums anywhere outside Bangkok (plus a few sea-view ones I guess around Pattaya and Hua Hin). Land is so cheap, condo's so expensive.. Easy to drop 3 million on a condo that doesn't even have a quarter of the space of a detached house costing the same.

On the Chiang Mai scene specifically, I have a feeling some more low-rise high-end 'boutique' condominium developments will be attempted in the short term future. How high-end those will still be 5-10 years down the line is anyone's guess.

But again, investing in Thailand *at all* is very, very, very iffy. When the whole constitution can be thrown out by a military junta on a relative whim, how much security do you really have? Can't debate it here, but what chance on a *complete* meltdown of the country when the inevitable happens.

[jaideeguy]

Thanks for your imput.....i know the risks of any investment here in LOS, especially now in these transition days and have made it my policy to not bring in any more $'s unless there are some drastic changes.....but i have the money here in bhatt, rotting in the bank from a previous land sale and i'm looking for a better return.

any suggestions based on this scenario??

[churchill]

I have heard that the Pai area has potential to take off in the future . land at present very cheap and have heard that several large hotels have bought land in this area for future projects . Even if land prices do not go up it would be a very nice area to build and live .