Surge in Thai condo market fueled by visa-free policy and Chinese buyers

[El Matador]

If anything goes wrong in China there could a massive bubble in the condo market as Thailand would be a great plan B. It is honestly way cheaper than mainland China at the moment.

 

Prepare to see more and more streets where everything is written in Chinese and Russian in the next few years. I saw that a bit in Nha Trang and Phuket. But they are doubling down hard to expand it quickly with the new government.

[SAFETY FIRST]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

Surge in Thai condo market fueled by visa-free policy 

Chinese buyers have been particularly active

Good, leave alone the Aussie market. 

[thailand49]

I wonder how many of these Condos developements are 51% Thai owned?🤫

[kuzmabruk]

1 hour ago, Mike Teavee said:

$1.46 Million for 10,000 condos puts the average price at $146 per unit which sounds about right for some of the shoeboxes that are going up nowadays! 
 

 

It seems that finally someone hit on the math problem here in Thailand.  They are talking about 

 

the first three quarters of the year 2023 foreign buyers transferred ownership of 10,703 units valued at 52,259 million baht (US$1.46 million)

.

 

52 thousand million, otherwise known as a billlion … therefore not $1.46 million but billion

 

substantial number 

[john donson]

1 hour ago, bradiston said:

I came up against a similar problem when attempting to close a deal with Chinese buyers for my house here. Long story short, their suggested method of RMB transfer and exchange into THB was obviously a money laundering exercise which involved a great deal of risk. Maybe these phantom buyers have the means to complete purchases, but how many more dodgy deals are we going to read about in the near future?

 

did they not need to show proof of incoming funds for land department, red flag nr 1...

 

unless they have residency status

 

[khunjake]

55 minutes ago, Sig said:

Whether or not it's actually a surge.... I can't even begin to fathom the nightmare of living in a condo with any appreciable number of Chinese residents, like more than one, hopefully separated by more than one floor. As much as I enjoy my friendship with a few Chinese immigrants, I've had some hideous experiences with Chinese in hotels. I was really sad to inform the owner of a hotel in Chiangmai that I had regularly gone to for 15 or so years, that I wouldn't be returning again. He knew exactly why before I even began to say. I really enjoyed the owners acquaintance and loved the location/comfort/price of his hotel. Then... a tour operator who catered to Chinese found it. That was the end! So much for enjoying quiet, sleepy Chiangmai... An experience I'll never forget. They completely destroyed my continued love of traveling to my nostalgic familiar haunt and relaxing vacations up north. I've since found other places to enjoy, but nonetheless, it was quite a sad day and has never been quite the same....

I would say Thailand pre-2008 was really a much more pleasant and peaceful country to visit and stay. First it was the Russians and then the locusts. It all went downhill from there. As a western person, you could easily glide in and out on just tourist exempts without any hassles. Then the suits were dropped and the uniforms came on. It was finally laid to rest at that point. 

[newnative]

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

It mentions the total value of all condo transactions and it also mentions that Chinese were responsible for 50% of them. I wonder what the average buy price was for the typical Chinese buyer, relative to the Thai and foreign buyers who are sometimes spending 10 to 50 million baht for a luxury condo, in a top building, on a high floor. 

 

Also I would hardly call those numbers a surge, when they are fairly similar to last year. 

    Not sure there is a 'typical' buyer, of any nationality.   We sold a studio condo for 3.25MB to a single Chinese man in his late 20s.  We also sold a 2-bedroom condo for 10.5MB to a Chinese married couple in their late 30s.  We had another 2 bedroom condo on the market for 7MB, and had a different Chinese man look at it.  He liked it but wanted something bigger and had a budget of 10-12MB.   At one of the projects where we lived, we had a retired Chinese couple buy the unit next to us--it would have been in the 12MB range.

     Several years ago we bought at a new Bangkok condo project, which had a separate sales staff with it own area just for Chinese buyers at the sales office.  That project was priced from the low 2MB to I think around 6MB and it did attract a number of Chinese buyers.  I suspect the Chinese sales in 2023 would be something like the above examples, with buyers at most of the price points.

[sambum]

7 hours ago, flyingtlger said:

"Expected" is the key word.....

Was the article written by someone from TAT?

[Paul Henry]

How many of these sales are financed. I would imagine quiet a few. When the next recession hits and it will, we will see a flood of cheap condos on the market as buyers become sellers. The same cycle happens every so on and  owners can't keep up the payments.

[PingRoundTheWorld]

Um what? 10,703 units valued at 52,259 million baht? 4882 baht per unit? that's awfully cheap for a condo. 

The math is obviously completely off/wrong on this. Also the whole sentiment is wrong: the Chinese are not buying like they used to, and neither are other nationalities. Articles like this just serve to artificially inflate prices even though there's no market demand. Prices will rise, units will sit empty for months/years, great job everyone.
Edit: guess I was reading it wrong, and it's 4,882,000 baht per unit.. which makes more sense.

Edited February 6 by PingRoundTheWorld

[crazykopite]

And there was me thinking it was all the Russians escaping from conscription to fight in Putins war that were buying up all the Condo’s I’m presuming they asked the buyers if it was down to Free Visas that persuaded them to buy !

[Dexxter]

2 hours ago, chrischronic said:

Friends have been complaining that the rent of condos in BKK is increasing dramatically due to condos being bought out and foreigners paying way too much on rent. I've been hearing stories of full floors being bought out and only finding foreign renters who will pay high because they compare rent to their home countries. I have a few friends who are very concerned that prices are going to get out of control. Do you think this will become a problem with rent increasing all across BKK?

 

I have a one bedroom apartment that I rent out in Melbourne Australia and the rent I pay for my Bangkok one bedroom is about 75% of the rent I receive for my apartment. Local prices are already close to Melbourne prices at least for that example. Maybe I should increase the rent I receive..

[Spock]

6 hours ago, khunjake said:

The build quality of condos have also deteriorated rapidly in recent years as well. Imagine buying a condo only to have paper thin walls and ceilings so that you can hear (and feel) every word and motion of your “quiet” Chinese neighbors. 

Chinese people are anything but quiet. 

[Celsius]

52 minutes ago, PingRoundTheWorld said:

Um what? 10,703 units valued at 52,259 million baht? 4882 baht per unit? that's awfully cheap for a condo. 

The math is obviously completely off/wrong on this. Also the whole sentiment is wrong: the Chinese are not buying like they used to, and neither are other nationalities. Articles like this just serve to artificially inflate prices even though there's no market demand. Prices will rise, units will sit empty for months/years, great job everyone.
Edit: guess I was reading it wrong, and it's 4,882,000 baht per unit.. which makes more sense.

 

another one who has no clue how Thais do numbers 

[Spock]

4 minutes ago, Dexxter said:

 

I have a one bedroom apartment that I rent out in Melbourne Australia and the rent I pay for my Bangkok one bedroom is about 75% of the rent I receive for my apartment. Local prices are already close to Melbourne prices at least for that example. Maybe I should increase the rent I receive..

I am from Melbourne and find it very hard to believe that rent there is only 25% more than in Bangkok. If that's an indication of where prices and the cost of living are at in Thailand, I will be staying home this year.

[Cabradelmar]

10 hours ago, webfact said:

a permanent visa-free policy for Chinese nationals

 

All this means Chinese tourists can visit Thailand for up to 30 days per visit without obtaining a visa beforehand. 

[Cabradelmar]

More tourist from countries with longer VER (visa exempt rule) entry = more condo sales? If condo sales are really increasing, it's probably more to do with long-stay visas and not VER entry.

[Gknrd]

Thailand has based their whole economy on the Chinese. Hence these articles. Thailand is in decline as are the Chinese. A few condo sales to the Chinese who have the means to get out of China is hardly a huge and sustaniable  condo market.  Chinese with a few bucks are desperate to get it out of China. At present the housing market in China has collapsed, the stock market has collapsed. If I were Chinese I would be doing the same.

Edited February 6 by Gknrd

[Dogmatix]

I wonder how the new buyers will feel, if they inadvertently spend over 180 days  in Thailand the year they buy a condo and end up paying 35% tax on the remittance plus penalties and interest for not declaring it.  The money laundering strategy of coming to Thailand and dumping black money into Thai condos won't look so great then. 

[Gknrd]

11 minutes ago, Dogmatix said:

I wonder how the new buyers will feel, if they inadvertently spend over 180 days  in Thailand the year they buy a condo and end up paying 35% tax on the remittance plus penalties and interest for not declaring it.  The money laundering strategy of coming to Thailand and dumping black money into Thai condos won't look so great then. 

Their desperate , Desperate people do stupid , stupid things. 

[edwinchester]

5 hours ago, Butts said:

Strange thing is the Chinese Law allows for only $50K USD to be sent out of China per year, so how are they illegally buying these Thai Property's?

Years ago, before I met my Thai wife, I had a Chinese girlfriend who was taking a Business course at University in the UK. Her dad was a board member of a large construction company and every so often sent his daughter a very substantial amount of money to her in the UK for her studies. This arrived by way of a courier, a stewardess, with a major airline. My girlfriend would arrange to meet her at her stopover hotel in Heathrow Airport and collect her money. I'd imagine connected individuals are still using methods like this.

[bradiston]

4 hours ago, john donson said:

 

did they not need to show proof of incoming funds for land department, red flag nr 1...

 

unless they have residency status

 

These guys weren't able to show proof of anything.

[Toby1947]

 

12 hours ago, Toby1947 said:

Multi entry Tourist Visa 60 day on entry+ 30 days extension at local immigration. Then border run or small break in neighbouring country 60 days on re entry. Can be extended again if required, simple a 5yr old could work it out 

 

[bradiston]

2 hours ago, Spock said:

I am from Melbourne and find it very hard to believe that rent there is only 25% more than in Bangkok. If that's an indication of where prices and the cost of living are at in Thailand, I will be staying home this year.

Possible he's not comparing like with like. My daughter rents out a studio apartment in London, E3, for over £1000  pm. 45k THB. High end condos or pool villas I think can easily command that kind of rent. Maybe even a week. When I first moved to Pratamnak 30 months ago, I was paying 5.5k THB pm for a 1 bed ground floor flat in a very decent development. It's doubled since then.

[jacob29]

11 hours ago, chrischronic said:

I've been hearing stories of full floors being bought out and only finding foreign renters who will pay high because they compare rent to their home countries.

Unless foreigners only started doing this in the past few years, which we can be pretty certain isn't the case, it doesn't have anything to do with recent price increases.

[Netease]

12 hours ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

Good, leave alone the Aussie market. 

Too late for that

[Mike Teavee]

15 hours ago, Celsius said:

 

you don't understand how Thais do numbers. I hope you are a newbie otherwise the post is embarrassing.

I’m confused, Thai’s do numbers like everybody else or were you trying to be funny (it didn’t work but then again it is 6:20am so my sense of humour might not have woken up yet)  - but 10,000 units X 146 is 1.46Million even on the Fahrenheit scale (Hey, my sense of humour is waking up 😊).
 

 

Edit: The only reason I made the post is because the author writes Millions instead of Billions 2 out of 2 times, once is careless but twice would seem to suggest that she genuinely meant Millions.

Edited February 6 by Mike Teavee

[Sig]

18 hours ago, khunjake said:

I would say Thailand pre-2008 was really a much more pleasant and peaceful country to visit and stay. First it was the Russians and then the locusts. It all went downhill from there. As a western person, you could easily glide in and out on just tourist exempts without any hassles. Then the suits were dropped and the uniforms came on. It was finally laid to rest at that point. 

Completely agree. I don't remember specific years, but definitely before 2008, maybe even better pre-2000. At any rate, it was a lot better in many different ways.

[pomchop]

18 hours ago, kuzmabruk said:

It seems that finally someone hit on the math problem here in Thailand.  They are talking about 

 

the first three quarters of the year 2023 foreign buyers transferred ownership of 10,703 units valued at 52,259 million baht (US$1.46 million)

.

 

52 thousand million, otherwise known as a billlion … therefore not $1.46 million but billion

 

substantial number 

exactly first thing i saw on first read...1.46 million baht for 10 k units?  Gee where do i buy such cheap condos...sign me up.

[quake]

Better get in there quick,  or they will all be gone.

You don't want to miss out on the condo boom.

prices may go up.