Land Prices in Isaan

[H508]

Land in Isaan... so frustrating. Even buying land in the middle of nowhere, there is no rhyme or reason to it. My last trip there in January we were looking to buy some land by the wife's parents home in a small village (Village is 20 minutes north of a really small town that has 1 Tesco; and then that small town is 1.25 hours north of Buriram City). It's all pretty much sunk farmland, so across the street, a distant relative bought 3 rai for 300k per rai and that seemed like a somewhat high, but still reasonably fair price from the person selling it. The person that bought it said there was another 6 rai plot of land just on the other side of the road owned by the same person that would probably split it up however we wanted. Other background info is that the person that owns these two plots does this as her business (basically buying up local land in the wide area when poor/desperate people need to sell it, so she has many many plots of land for sale all over the area).

 

"Great!" I thought, "I'll maybe buy between 3-6 rai @ 300k baht/rai and the family can farm it or use it to pasture their 6 buffalo for the time-being and then maybe in 15 years we'll build a house for ourselves there when I retire from the US to Thailand." We had the person that bought the earlier plot introduce my wife and wife's aunt (naturally not including the rich falang in any discussion) to the person that owned the land.

 

The person gave my wife a price of 600k baht/rai. The wife messages me and gives me that price and I ask how they sold 300k/rai literally across the street and what made this same exact land two times that price? She came back and said that the 300k/rai land the person only bought 1 year ago for 250k/rai and sold it for 300k/rai. The land we wanted she's had for 9 years that she bought for 200k/rai and said she deserves 15% increase in land price each year (so, over those 9 years at +15% increase, gives the price of 600k/rai.) Hard to argue with such...sound logic. There is literally no one in her village that could ever afford to buy that land (it's not like it's on a main road a few km from Tesco or other commercial plots or anything) and somehow will continue to get 15% more expensive every year... I told the wife that maybe she just didn't want to sell it and that was her face-saving way of giving an absurd price, but everyone said no, she thought it was worth 600k. Thankfully, even my not... business-saavy wife agreed that price was insane and literally no one would/could ever buy it.

 

Then, in the same area, my wife's cousin said that her grandma needs to sell land not far from where we want. So, I have the wife talk to the cousin's grandma. The grandma tells her she'd love to sell the land for 250k/rai but her step-grandson told her that if grandma sells the land to anyone instead of giving it to him, he'll kill her. So, grandma won't sell (and we wouldn't buy anyway with some drugged out person thinking he somehow deserves that land).

 

So, we've put buying land on hold, lol.

 

Edit: just for more details, it's chanote land (I wouldn't buy anything else and can't see why anyone else would either). It does have a paved road that connects to the highway, but no sewer or water (easy to hook up electric as the power lines go along the road).

Distance from Buriram City (so out in the country), and then close up area of where the land is (showing that nothing else is around it for 20 minutes in either direction).

Edited May 29, 2022 by H508

[Hummin]

15 minutes ago, H508 said:

Land in Isaan... so frustrating. Even buying land in the middle of nowhere, there is no rhyme or reason to it. My last trip there in January we were looking to buy some land by the wife's parents home in a small village. This is all basically sunk farmland that is well outside of a super small town (and at least 1.25 hours north of Buriram City into Maha Sarakham). Across the street, a distant relative bought 3 rai for 300k per rai and that seemed like a somewhat high, but still reasonably fair price from the person selling it. The person that bought it said there was another 6 rai plot of land just on the other side of the road owned by the same person that would probably split it up however we wanted. Other background info is that the person that owns these two plots does this as her business (basically buying up local land in the wide area when poor/desperate people need to sell it, so she has many many plots of land for sale all over the area).

 

"Great!" I thought, "I'll maybe buy between 3-6 rai @ 300k baht/rai and the family can farm it or use it to pasture their 6 buffalo for the time-being and then maybe in 15 years we'll build a house for ourselves there when I retire from the US to Thailand." We had the person that bought the earlier plot introduce my wife and wife's aunt (naturally not including the rich falang in any discussion) to the person that owned the land.

 

The person gave my wife a price of 600k baht/rai. The wife messages me and gives me that price and I ask how they sold 300k/rai literally across the street and what made this same exact land two times that price? She came back and said that the 300k/rai land the person only bought 1 year ago for 250k/rai and sold it for 300k/rai. The land we wanted she's had for 9 years that she bought for 200k/rai and said she deserves 15% increase in land price each year (so, over those 9 years at +15% increase, gives the price of 600k/rai.) Hard to argue with such...sound logic. There is literally no one in her village that could ever afford to buy that land (it's not like it's on a main road a few km from Tesco or other commercial plots or anything) and somehow will continue to get 15% more expensive every year... I told the wife that maybe she just didn't want to sell it and that was her face-saving way of giving an absurd price, but everyone said no, she thought it was worth 600k. Thankfully, even my not... business-saavy wife agreed that price was insane and literally no one would/could ever buy it.

 

Then, in the same area, my wife's cousin said that her grandma needs to sell land not far from where we want. So, I have the wife talk to the cousin's grandma. The grandma tells her she'd love to sell the land for 250k/rai but her step-grandson told her that if grandma sells the land to anyone instead of giving it to him, he'll kill her. So, grandma won't sell (and we wouldn't buy anyway with some drugged out person thinking he somehow deserves that land).

 

So, we've put buying land on hold, lol.

The most important is the land title on the plots to figure out the price, higt obove water level in rain season, number of protected trees, et etc. but logic fails indeed sometimes. 

[youreavinalaff]

5 hours ago, H508 said:

Land in Isaan... so frustrating. Even buying land in the middle of nowhere, there is no rhyme or reason to it. My last trip there in January we were looking to buy some land by the wife's parents home in a small village (Village is 20 minutes north of a really small town that has 1 Tesco; and then that small town is 1.25 hours north of Buriram City). It's all pretty much sunk farmland, so across the street, a distant relative bought 3 rai for 300k per rai and that seemed like a somewhat high, but still reasonably fair price from the person selling it. The person that bought it said there was another 6 rai plot of land just on the other side of the road owned by the same person that would probably split it up however we wanted. Other background info is that the person that owns these two plots does this as her business (basically buying up local land in the wide area when poor/desperate people need to sell it, so she has many many plots of land for sale all over the area).

 

"Great!" I thought, "I'll maybe buy between 3-6 rai @ 300k baht/rai and the family can farm it or use it to pasture their 6 buffalo for the time-being and then maybe in 15 years we'll build a house for ourselves there when I retire from the US to Thailand." We had the person that bought the earlier plot introduce my wife and wife's aunt (naturally not including the rich falang in any discussion) to the person that owned the land.

 

The person gave my wife a price of 600k baht/rai. The wife messages me and gives me that price and I ask how they sold 300k/rai literally across the street and what made this same exact land two times that price? She came back and said that the 300k/rai land the person only bought 1 year ago for 250k/rai and sold it for 300k/rai. The land we wanted she's had for 9 years that she bought for 200k/rai and said she deserves 15% increase in land price each year (so, over those 9 years at +15% increase, gives the price of 600k/rai.) Hard to argue with such...sound logic. There is literally no one in her village that could ever afford to buy that land (it's not like it's on a main road a few km from Tesco or other commercial plots or anything) and somehow will continue to get 15% more expensive every year... I told the wife that maybe she just didn't want to sell it and that was her face-saving way of giving an absurd price, but everyone said no, she thought it was worth 600k. Thankfully, even my not... business-saavy wife agreed that price was insane and literally no one would/could ever buy it.

 

Then, in the same area, my wife's cousin said that her grandma needs to sell land not far from where we want. So, I have the wife talk to the cousin's grandma. The grandma tells her she'd love to sell the land for 250k/rai but her step-grandson told her that if grandma sells the land to anyone instead of giving it to him, he'll kill her. So, grandma won't sell (and we wouldn't buy anyway with some drugged out person thinking he somehow deserves that land).

 

So, we've put buying land on hold, lol.

 

Edit: just for more details, it's chanote land (I wouldn't buy anything else and can't see why anyone else would either). It does have a paved road that connects to the highway, but no sewer or water (easy to hook up electric as the power lines go along the road).

Distance from Buriram City (so out in the country), and then close up area of where the land is (showing that nothing else is around it for 20 minutes in either direction).

You show proximity to Buriram but are actually quiite a bit nearer to Muang Mahasarakham.

[H508]

1 hour ago, youreavinalaff said:

You show proximity to Buriram but are actually quiite a bit nearer to Muang Mahasarakham.

Phayyak is almost exactly in the middle of Buriram City and Maha Sarakham city (both a little over an hour away). Point still stands it's in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around, and it's purely lowered rice land that will take a lot of money to backfill for a house (or expensive in my eyes for farm land that only produces 1 rice crop a year (vs the higher water areas that get 2 crops). Real point of the story is that the same exact land can be sold for 300k/rai or 600k/rai based on a revenue table of when they purchased it vs the actual going rate of the land based on a real appraisal or prevalent market conditions. So, to determine 'fair price' or if something is a good deal can be extremely hard to determine. In the US, so much is based on comparable property that has sold in the area. That doesn't seem to exist in my (extremely) limited experience of trying to buy land in Thailand and the same land, sold by the same owner varies massively.

 

[sezze]

Land prices in Isaan are the same as land prices anywhere else . Meaning they can be very low or very high depending on road access , sunken or raised land , land title , proximity to city/village , present owner ( and the need for money) ....,....

[youreavinalaff]

27 minutes ago, H508 said:

Phayyak is almost exactly in the middle of Buriram City and Maha Sarakham

Sorry.

 

I was referring to the place shown in your first map. Not Phayyak.

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

Out in my part of Issan the wife and I have had our eyes on this plot we hear is going for 300k. Dunno the rai-age, but it's got a raised area for a house with a good sized activity/parking area around it, surrounded by a somewhat large area of farmland for rice, all next to a main road. Despite the house area being raised it still looks a bit too low and would have to be raised more, that's where several truckloads of dirt come in, which is what we've seen several do around here.