I have,for 3 years, been renting a very pleasant town house in the Bangkapi area and would now like to purchase one as I am about to be married.

Ringing agents and looking at "For sale" magazines has so far been a waste of time and some places are madly overpriced. I know the value in my own village, for example, but seems to be that you have to have an ear to the ground when one becomes available.

Does anyone have a reputable agent they could recommend or is it true ,as it appears , that Thais do not go through Agents. I am enlisting my girlfriends asistance as initial contact so the price does not get inflated when they hear a falang but as yet no luck.

The preferred area is Bankapi , Lad prao. A large apartment or condo would be considered but the size ratio makes ,for me , the town house a better proposition. Budget is up to 1.5 million . The town house I live in was purchased for 1.2 milion 4 years ago and the latest sale in the village a steal at 1 million 200,000

The biggest help you will need is how to keep control of the townhouse...it's considered "real" property and, as a non-thai, you can't own it. Your wife can own it, and I suggest that you search the discussions about trying to keep real estate after you and your honey go your separate ways. You can form a company, which owns the townhome - check with Greg Lange @ Sunbelt Asia for details. Many Thais use agents, others do not. I suggest using a reputable firm (fort example, Plus, CBRE) - that have thousands of property listings and have lots of contacts. There are a lot of much smaller companies (many owned by farangs) that, although nice and friendly, couldn't find a needle in a stack of needles.