2025 stock favorites

[KhunHeineken]

20 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

My stock pick for 2025 is BHP.

With a slowing Chinese economy????

[KhunHeineken]

34 minutes ago, newnative said:

I have never thought, or said, in any post and at any time, either on this thread or any other thread on Thai Visa or Asean Now, that property ALWAYS increases in value. 

So you agree with me, right?

 

35 minutes ago, newnative said:

See The Base Central Pattaya, as one good example.  Wish I had had more than just one of those. 

An extremely poor example. 

 

The Base Condo is nothing more than a large daily rental hotel, and has been for some years.  That's fine if you want to do illegal AirBnB, but why bother for a few baht a day? 

 

A lot of people got stung at The Base Condo.  They thought they were buying a condo in a condo building.  Turns out all they were doing was buying a condo in a hotel building.  There goes a huge part of the market to sell to in the future, and you one is stuck living there. 

 

Who wants to buy a place to live in Pattaya that is full of Chinese holiday guests being swapped out by the hundreds every day?  More poor property advice from you. 

 

41 minutes ago, newnative said:

Rather, real estate has tons of variables and does not lend itself to the blanket statements you make.

My blanket statement was in response to a member's post that property never loses.  I know there are many variables, some of them out of the owner's control sometimes.

 

Your Thailand / Pattaya real estate hard sell is simply BS, and it has to be, because you have skin in the game, and other members should be very wary of your posts because all you do is talk it up.

 

Would you care to add some balance?  What about those who have lost on property here, or those that simply are stuck and can not sell?   

[newnative]

9 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

So you agree with me, right?

 

An extremely poor example. 

 

The Base Condo is nothing more than a large daily rental hotel, and has been for some years.  That's fine if you want to do illegal AirBnB, but why bother for a few baht a day? 

 

A lot of people got stung at The Base Condo.  They thought they were buying a condo in a condo building.  Turns out all they were doing was buying a condo in a hotel building.  There goes a huge part of the market to sell to in the future, and you one is stuck living there. 

 

Who wants to buy a place to live in Pattaya that is full of Chinese holiday guests being swapped out by the hundreds every day?  More poor property advice from you. 

 

My blanket statement was in response to a member's post that property never loses.  I know there are many variables, some of them out of the owner's control sometimes.

 

Your Thailand / Pattaya real estate hard sell is simply BS, and it has to be, because you have skin in the game, and other members should be very wary of your posts because all you do is talk it up.

 

Would you care to add some balance?  What about those who have lost on property here, or those that simply are stuck and can not sell?   

        You're confusing, perhaps intentionally, situational quality of life with return on investment.  One has nothing to do with the other.  The Base Central Pattaya remains a good example of real estate that appreciated short-term.   You obviously had no rebuttal to its increase in value so you deflected to who are some of its residents, and their effect on other residents.   Which has nothing to do with answering the question, did original buyers at The Base make money on their real estate investment?  Yes--it would have been very difficult not to.

       You are correct that some of the original buyers at The Base, including me, got 'stung' when The Base became popular with Airbnb renters.  (Obviously, no sting for the owners doing the Airbnbs.)  But, once again, getting 'stung' has nothing at all to do with return on investment.  Original buyers at The Base, stung or not, made a profit on their real estate purchase.  I, for one, would have been happy being stung more than once.

       When you invest in real estate you need to keep track of it--just as you would a stock you own.  In the case of The Base, we bought it as a rental investment for long-term tenants.  The first year we had a great corporate renter, paying 25,000 baht a month for the 1-bedroom condo.  Towards the end of the lease, he told us he would not be renewing due to the Airbnb renters. 

     Keeping on top of things, and moving fast, we put the condo on the market for sale and sold it quickly, at a nice profit, plus the 275,000 baht in rent we had made.  Took away some of the sting.  Timing, of course, can be important when you buy or sell.  But, in the case of The Base, had we not sold at that time we still would have realized a profit if we sold later.   Hipflat today shows similar high-floor 35 sqm condos at The Base for 4.5MB, a bit more than what we sold ours for.  While you and I might not like Airbnbs, The Base has actually not suffered with a drop in its condo values.

      In your post, you grossly misquoted me once again.  Please stop.   Nowhere in my post did I advise anyone to buy a condo at The Base.  Or any other condo or house project.  Ever.  I did lament that I only bought one as an original buyer--not the same thing, at all.  And, I've said many times that renting can be a better choice in Thailand depending on a person's circumstances.   

     I do respond to real estate topics and I do make my opinions known, and will continue to do so if I feel I have something to say.  If someone posts information that is incorrect, such as the recent one on US 30-year mortgages, I will respond if I see it and set the record straight.   There's a lot of misinformation--and not just with real estate.  I like when others do the same with corrections.  I also like that I often learn something, and I also try to contribute.

      Sometimes, I like to provide a different take.  For example, I've responded several times when posters have said real estate agents here are useless.   That has not been my experience in selling numerous properties here, and I will post with my experiences, usually giving examples.  So, readers now have two takes, not just one, on agents in general--useless or useful.   Individually, some are useless and some are very useful--which is why we list with multiple agencies, as many as we possibly can.

     I'm not 'hard selling' anything, and certainly not real estate.  I'm not an agent and I have no skin in the game, other than currently owning one house and one condo.   Instead, with my posts I have related some of my experiences with real estate, here and in the US, and readers can take what they want from them--or not read them at all.  In some cases, I try to use my experiences, both good and bad, to show what has worked for me here in Thailand.   And, sometimes what to avoid.

     Several times, for example, I have written in detail exactly what I do in order to sell a property here, given there is no MLS (Multiple Listing Service) in Thailand.  In, I think, one case it was in response to a poster saying he had his property listed with one agent he thought was useless and his property hadn't sold.  Perhaps how we do it might also work for someone else--it's there if they want to try it--or not.  I've also posted and given tips on the importance of staging a property properly for sale, which can greatly help, especially if your property is one of a number of similar ones also on the market.

    For credibility when I post my selling method, I might have mentioned that my spouse and I have sold, 21 condos and 3 houses since 2010 in Thailand, all but 3 in Pattaya.  (Real estate can appreciate short-term.)  Two were sold during the height of covid, and another at its tail-end.   Most were sold with an agent finding the buyer--hence, my agent comments in various posts, using our experiences with them.   

    Although I have used the term as shorthand, none were actually straight flips, but all were properties that we lived in, for a time, or rented, before selling.  Whatever we buy, we never, ever buy anything we wouldn't live in ourselves--and we did live in them.  A good rule, I think.   Five were bought strictly as rentals, and then sold when Airbnb changed the rental scene and we decided we no longer wanted to be a landlord renting property here.   Again, and as always, readers are free to take or leave whatever information I post.  Or, skip over my posts altogether.

        

[KhunHeineken]

4 hours ago, newnative said:

Which has nothing to do with answering the question, did original buyers at The Base make money on their real estate investment?  Yes--it would have been very difficult not to.

Many couldn't sell then, and still can't sell now.  Where's the money in that theoretical profit? 

 

4 hours ago, newnative said:

You are correct that some of the original buyers at The Base, including me, got 'stung' when The Base became popular with Airbnb renters. 

You just said it was difficult not to make money at The Base.  Now you say many got "stung."

 

4 hours ago, newnative said:

I do respond to real estate topics and I do make my opinions known, and will continue to do so if I feel I have something to say. 

As I will.  It's just that you constantly talk up the market to the point it becomes very clear you are only do so because you are financially exposed. 

 

4 hours ago, newnative said:

Five were bought strictly as rentals, and then sold when Airbnb changed the rental scene

Which is exactly what happened in many condo buildings.  Many owners sold up and moved out, putting downward pressure on the properties in that building.  Just the way the Chinese like it. 

[newnative]

14 minutes ago, KhunHeineken said:

Many couldn't sell then, and still can't sell now.  Where's the money in that theoretical profit? 

 

You just said it was difficult not to make money at The Base.  Now you say many got "stung."

 

As I will.  It's just that you constantly talk up the market to the point it becomes very clear you are only do so because you are financially exposed. 

 

Which is exactly what happened in many condo buildings.  Many owners sold up and moved out, putting downward pressure on the properties in that building.  Just the way the Chinese like it. 

      You seem to have reading comprehension issues--and it's not helped by selectively taking sentences from my post and then deliberately misinterpreting them.   Getting 'stung' at The Base only referred to the shift in renters to Airbnb types.  As I said in my post, and left out by you, those owners doing the Airbnb rentals were not stung at all.  I chose not to do Airbnb rentals so I decided to sell.  Also, I didn't say 'many', I said 'some'--again misquoting.  And, I also said it wasn't much of a sting since I made a nice profit, as did others who chose to sell.  You conveniently left all of that out, as well.  So to review--a rather painless sting, soothed by an easy profit.

      This shift in renters at The Base had no effect on the value of condos at The Base.  I was easily able to sell the condo after a year of renting it out.   Others did the same and you have presented absolutely no evidence that owners had trouble selling then--or now.

      I, on the other hand, did post current condo Hipflat prices at The Base for condos similar to what I sold to support what I said.  Some additional Hipflat data for The Base:  The average selling price is 121,866 baht per sqm.  The average selling price in that area is a little less than 80,000 baht a sqm so The Base remains considerably above the average.  It is also considerably above the 99,242 sqm price Hipflat gives for Centric Sea, a large condo project built up the street around the same time.   

     At 121,866 a sqm, that would make a 35 sqm high-floor condo similar to what I owned be worth 4,266,010 baht today.   Original owners, including myself, paid around 3MB for these 1 bedrooms so, again, not much of a sting.  Your next to last and last paragraphs, both somewhat garbled, are too ludicrous to respond to.