What is the best starting negotiation margin would you suggest to offer in buying a house or condo without offending the owner ? What is the going margin rate that seem to be accept? Is housing prices pretty firm and accurate? I understand it depends of the location. I like to get a good understand in the major areas of Thailand like BKK, chiang mai, Phuket or Krabi. Is there a way to research past sale history of a specific house or condo in Thailand? I like to understand what would be good offer? Is it just based on just price per sq meter comp?

Mike

What is the best starting negotiation margin would you suggest to offer in buying a house or condo without offending the owner ?

Do not worry about offending the owner. Repeat three times.

The owner may be easily offended or may be asking 20% over market for the property.

You want to get the property as absolutely as inexpensively as possible. You are not trying to make friends.

What is the going margin rate that seem to be accept?

They are all different. Some people will not drop 1% while others in a more desperate situation will drop 25%. I do not know where you are looking, but in Pattaya many "sellers" really "offerers" asking a lot more than they can sell their homes for, have been trying to get a ceetain price for a couple of years. Now they would be able to get a lot less than they what they could have got before... Sorry for how that sounds.

It is a buyers market now.... if you are in Pattaya.

Is housing prices pretty firm and accurate?

NO, not firm.

Accurate: From the land offices in the various cities? Absolutely not. The taxes paid on a sale are based on the amount that the land office decides. You could pay more or less than that amount, but normally a lot more.

I understand it depends of the location. I like to get a good understand in the major areas of Thailand like BKK, chiang mai, Phuket or Krabi.

It would be difficult enough to get a good understanding of Chiang Mai, Phuket or Krabi, let alone Bangkok.

Rent a hotel fo a couple of weeks while you do your homework to find a good place to RENT!!!! After you have rented for a while, ONE YEAR!!, then you will be able to decide if you really want to live there, and you will also have learned a lot about the market.

ONLY BUY IF YOU PLAN ON KEEPING THE PROPERTY FIVE YEARS!!!

SELLING PROPERTY IN THAILAND IS A LOT MORE DIFFICULT THAN BUYING IT.

Is there a way to research past sale history of a specific house or condo in Thailand?

On the back of the chinote (land title deed) all the prior owners will be listed. I do not know how you would go about locating them, or finding out truthfully how much was paid for the property.

I like to understand what would be good offer?

Thailand has a lot of gray areas...... starting at the borders. A good offer is an offer which you are happy to pay in order to own the property. Consider the yearly rental value (not 12 x montly rent as that is rare) as well. This helps to determine a property's value. Look at all of the other properties for sale in the building. See how how long they have been for sale. It would be safe to assume that many of them are at the same price they were before the financial melt down. The majority of them will still be for sale a year from now.

Is it just based on just price per sq meter comp?

Many sellers will use a variety of means in which to value their properties.

X baht / sq. meter (unfurnished)

plus

Their own furnishings

plus a profit for the effort

and appreciation.

This will usually be far higher than they can hope to get, thus a large number of units for sale.

Best of luck, but after renting for a while and looking around, you may vey well decide that this is a great country in which to rent.

"Is there a way to research past sale history of a specific house or condo in Thailand?"

Yes. The Land Department can give you the sales - and assessed - prices. You can also check with the sales/rental office in a condo for that information.

From your questions, it's apparent that you do not know what "margin" is. Too, from your questions, I suspect that you have never bought any home anywhere, and that is scary.

"Is there a way to research past sale history of a specific house or condo in Thailand?"

Yes. The Land Department can give you the sales - and assessed - prices. You can also check with the sales/rental office in a condo for that information.

From your questions, it's apparent that you do not know what "margin" is. Too, from your questions, I suspect that you have never bought any home anywhere, and that is scary.

Yup!

And landed properties and condos are evaluated differently.

Condos - location of project and unit in a building, neighbourhood, floor layout (is there any bedroom with no window or door to a balcony?) and price is by Bt/m2 internal floor area.

Landed property -location of housing estate, neighbourhood, size, shape and orientation of land, design and finishes of house. Price is separately evaluated for land and for the house. Same house on a smaller piece of land cost less, etc.

Market benchmarks are the most practical and viable form of determining indicative market value for most residential purposes (buying individual homes / condos).

Be sure that you only use the most recent transactions in the most similar properties, otherwise the information can become next to worthless, as a rule of thumb you are looking for comps not older than no greater than six months, if you can, but the more recent the better.

If the property has been sold more than once the recorded sales prices (and the parties) will be recorded on the back of the chanode.

Typically vendors will add in a margin for negotiation of 10-15%, although some are clearly in cloud cuckoo land. Doing your homework on comparable prices will help you to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Many of these overly ambitious vendors will put their values down to decoration or 'improvements' they have made, but bear in mind that furnishings depreciate at 20% per year, and it doesn't matter how much polish you apply, you still cant make shit shine!

Meaning that many people spend in appropriate amounts on fit-out (vis-a-vis the quality of the property) making improvements that do little to enhance its underlying asset value. e.g. 3 bed units converted into large 2 bedders (which happens more than you'd think). Good improvements include extensions to houses, or creating an extra room from a surplus reception area etc.

Edited April 17, 200917 yr by quiksilva

A good offer is an offer which you are happy to pay in order to own the property.

in negotiations where the buyer is completely ignorant of the product, happiness to purchase really is the only benchmark of 'fairness' . In thailand, it should rather be 'ecstatic' than just happy, you should feel like you got a really good deal. another thing, only idiots gets offended in negotiations... anyone whose negotiated more than a couple times know that it's just a dancing game to make sure the other party isn't capable of being shafted, as soon as that realization is met, the parties generally end up at a 'fair market price.' so please don't worry about some profiteering realty speculator getting offended