Hi, myself and my wife have been planning to build a little place, nothing fancy, near her family. They are in Kra Buri, Ranong. We have the land and its been filled, should be ready to start building at the beginning of 2011.

The reports we are getting from her family and friends of ours who have recently been to LOS is that prices have risen dramatically in the last short while.

Have any of you had experience recently of building? Can it be that what would have cost 1 Million will now a year later cost 2 million.

With the exchange rate with the £ being pretty terrible as well it all seems to be getting pretty expensive.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Sean.

I think when you are ready to build or when you are seeking a local builder,

you'd better do almost everything yourself to avoid being taken to the cleaner.

The building cost has not increased that dramatically comparing with last year.

Well, if you can and if you are willing, perhaps you could tell us in more details regarding your building project,

perhaps then a more accurate building cost could be ascertained. OK? Cheers.

I am not sure about the labour side of things ..assume they have not changed much for the actual labourers, maybe the margins for the manager hae though.

As far as materials ...the wife tells me steel has gone up a lot in the past couple of years and so has cement ( used to be about 130baht a bag)..bricks maybe a couple of baht more per..although super bricks seem to have come down with more acceptance.

As another poster said , source your materials and trucks full of concrete yourself and just pay construction costs..a BIG headache but if you have the time you'll save the money. If you have any practical skills do some of the simpler final fit out yourself....ie hanging kitchen cupboards adding light fittings etc...obviously everything helps to reduce costs.

Oh and a reminder that "temporary power" is charged at double ampere hour rating than a permanent meter!!

Not in the south but way way up north in Chiang Rai, still relevant though, people (who do quite a lot of building work) in my g/f's village have been saying that concrete blocks are now 'peang peang'. Used to be @2 baht now @7 baht, so maybe materials have increased in cost.

Hopefully some members with more experience in building recently can chip in.

It's depend on how big is your house and your finishing material. My Dad is Ranong local person. He has build his few houses at Ranong downtown. His contractor cost him under 10,000 BHT./Sq.m. just only 1 Floor, ceramic tile finished.

Most of contractors there use Burmese workers and shouldn't cost that much. So, I taught that most of your cost come from your finishing stuff and built in furniture.

Materials have gone up a lot compared with a few years ago.

Gone are the days of a decent house on the cheap in most areas.