Thailand Ranked Sixth Best Country Worldwide for Expats

[ikke1959]

2 hours ago, newnative said:

      I think you mis-read my post, which referred to both renters and owners--who both save lots of money living here.  I, too, own my house, fully paid for and bought last year.  The house, a 3 bedroom 4 bath with pool outside of Pattaya, cost me 6.5MB.  About $180, 000.  That's less than the small 1 bedroom 1 bath condo I owned in the US, which is now worth $235,000.   

     So, living here, I have much larger space to live in, with my own pool, for much less money.  Buying my large house here, instead of that small 1 bedroom condo in the US, saved me about $55,000.  Had I tried to buy a 3 bedroom with pool in the US, the savings would be even more here in comparison--in the town where I lived in the US, 3 bedroom single family homes are $500,000 and up.

      My response to the poster complaining about the high cost of jam and wine remains valid.  Instead of laser-focusing on relatively small cost items like jam, it's important to look at the savings you achieve here on the big ticket items, especially housing.  I think it's likely that your 4 bedroom house here in Thailand cost less than a 4 bedroom in your home country, and likely costs less to run each year here when real estate taxes, HOA fees, maintenance costs, and utilities are factored in.  

     Of course, nobody likes to pay high prices on products we buy.  But, it's important to look at the big picture.  As I said in my earlier post, the savings you achieve on the big ticket items like housing pays for a lot of small ticket items like jam and wine.  

I agree with you, but a house is a one time purchase, and indeed much cheaper than my country too, but there is much more than a house, I have to eat and imported food whatever is because of taxes very expensive, That are costs that nobody calculate. In my country a jar of Hero jam is 2,5 euro that is 100 THB but in Thailand I pay 250 THB for the same jar. If you calculate probably how much extra you pay for all these items maybe you save on your house but you pay it by the daily groceries, and if that is not enough now Thailand is going to tax all incomes/wages/salaries/pensions from all the foreigners... and believe me the tax here is higher than in my homecountry... I am intergraded already here after 20 years, but still I see that Thailand is not the country anymore that is attractive to foreigners, but there are other options surely for newcomers and Thailand will miss them because of their greed