Issan Building Boom

[farangme]

The traffic in Udon is now like Bangkok. Even the ring road is bumper to bumper. Went to UD town shopping center last night and it was completely packed on a Monday night. From what I'm told almost anyone with a job can get a home and car loan, and everything is financed. Sounds like another economic crisis in the making. Woman next door who is the mia noi of the owner of a home improvement supply business in Khon Kaen just left on a trip to Sweden/Finland with him paid for by his wholesaler. Business must be good.

Posted with Thaivisa App http://apps.thaivisa.com

[diggledunc]

Same outside Nong Bua... not worried about foreigners or the educated, it's the country folk that concern me. It has been my experience that the average rice farmer does not grok the concept of loans and payback easily. What may be a boom for them now, could very well be a bust later on.

Totally agree. When many of them can't even use an ATM how are they going to understand commercially loaned money and interest rates. A lot of land is being bought/sold where i am and seemingly with ever increasing prices which as another poster said have no correlation to returns on farmland. In the main town they have built a new market - still empty after 4 years, many blocks with ground floor shop units and small condos above again with many units empty. I sometimes wonder if with the new blocks it is just bad financial cashflow forecasts or none or maybe money laundering.