Sansiri Homes - Any Good?

[hotandhumid]

I am planning on viewing this companys single house homes, they have a couple of 'moo baans' in bkk and on the face of it they look very nice and not overly priced IMO.

Does anyone have any experience with this companys houses or knowledge on the quality of their builds?

Thanks.

[negreanu]

probably in the top 3 developers for houses.

[h90]

and don't know this developer, but my house....after 5 years almost fall to dust. And it looked perfect on the beginning.

So be very carefully......

[hotandhumid]

and don't know this developer, but my house....after 5 years almost fall to dust. And it looked perfect on the beginning.

So be very carefully......

Was it built by cowboys?

[h90]

and don't know this developer, but my house....after 5 years almost fall to dust. And it looked perfect on the beginning.

So be very carefully......

Was it built by cowboys?

more likely by cows....

Actually it isn't fair to tell so, it more seems the owner of the project saved big at the cement usage....but not only on the cement.

But on a quick look everything seemed to be fine....

[roadrunerboi]

Not sure about houses but the perception is that they built too fast.

I viewed a duplex apartment Sansiri 24 and there were large structural cracks in the walls (granted they were NOT retaining walls but still)... and am not talking about hairline cracks where you cant stick a coin in, am talking about 1-2inch width cracks approx a foot and a half across.

Of course I asked how these would be resolved IF I bought the place and they said I needed to speak to the owners... I bailed!

There was another mooban with a Bhutanese theme near the 2nd toll way (Chaeng wattana area)... these were houses and the club house + pool was BEAUTIFUL. There was a large protest sometime later by residents complaining of multiple cracks appearing on ALL the exterior walls of houses and ponding/flooding in the access roads of the mooban.

The above thread is right... "be careful!"

IMHO!

[h90]

Not sure about houses but the perception is that they built too fast.

I viewed a duplex apartment Sansiri 24 and there were large structural cracks in the walls (granted they were NOT retaining walls but still)... and am not talking about hairline cracks where you cant stick a coin in, am talking about 1-2inch width cracks approx a foot and a half across.

Of course I asked how these would be resolved IF I bought the place and they said I needed to speak to the owners... I bailed!

There was another mooban with a Bhutanese theme near the 2nd toll way (Chaeng wattana area)... these were houses and the club house + pool was BEAUTIFUL. There was a large protest sometime later by residents complaining of multiple cracks appearing on ALL the exterior walls of houses and ponding/flooding in the access roads of the mooban.

The above thread is right... "be careful!"

IMHO!

We, (not Sansiri) get everywhere small cracks and if the rain comes in the right angle the walls inside get wet :-(

I don't know how to check for that problem before the cracks will be visible and before buying a house. If someone know it would help the topic starter.

[RAZZELL]

Interesting thread...

The houses look great on the web...looking forward to seeing one in the flesh in a couple of months...

RAZZ

[USNret]

I don't know how to check for that problem before the cracks will be visible and before buying a house. If someone know it would help the topic starter.

This is what keeps me from buying in Thailand. I just might become a lifetime renter. The houses always look so beautiful as their display model, but anything more than 24 months old is already run down & in disrepair. I can't afford to keep buying a new house every 5 years.

The only thing I can think of on how to tell of defects before they are visible is to be knowledgeable of quality building practices & building materials. Then you have to stay onsite during construction to ensure the right practices & materials are upheld. I don't have confidence in my skills in this regard, and even if I educate myself I give Thai builders credit for being skillful enough to fool me (i.e, buying quality materials and then swapping for inferior materials when I'm not paying attention.)

Also, if you are buying into a pre-planned community you will have little say over how they build your house. They are building cookie cutter style so that's what you get. I do see European builders advertising in Thailand, saying they will uphold modern building standards. That might be the solution if they are for real & can be trusted. You will pay for quality.

Edited November 27, 2012 by USNret

[PattayaPhom]

That's a lot to do with the owners, they can't be bothered with upkeep

[trogers]

Understand that Bangkok is sited on a river delta and most places have a layer of soft soil in the first 5-6m depth. Housing projects sold and built during the upswing are done within the shortest time possible, meaning not much time has been allocated for earthfill to settle - anyone seen piling work starts only after waiting out 5 years for the earthfill to settle?

It is then no surprise that buyers experience soil subsidence and cracks on walls within the first couple of years after moving into their houses. The name of the developer will not change this short coming.

[dave111223]

I guess one of the upsides to building a house, as opposed to buying a completed moobaan house, is that you know exactly what is under the final coat of paint.

For example last week on our house they decided to run an electrical pipe directly between the hot/cold shower outlets. Might be a pretty nasty situation if you didn't spot that one then screwed your shower head through the wires.

[Digitalbanana]

>and not overly priced IMO

Compared to what? How many Thais can buy a 6M THB house on their income in Bangkok where most of these buildings start at now? I think all these brand name mubahns are over hyped and overpriced. They look good at the start, some have spacious parkland neighborhoods (others don't!) and the houses are all "sold" before you can see them built. One wonders how many of these sales are cash or on bank loan. 99.9% bank loan perhaps? When the loaners default and the maintenance fees don't come in after the first three yrs compulsory down payment - there goes the neighborhood.

One thing I often find strange is that non of these brand name mubahns have infrastructure for the basics of life such as shops? Just going out to buy something requires a long haul trek to an established village or mall?

Only way is to check out second hand houses four years down the road to see if the neighborhoods are still functioning methinks? You need an invite for that!

[Payboy]

Sansiri - good corporate citizen no doubt.

[Khun Jean]

Buy an older house in an accomplished mooban. That way at least have a change to see if it is properly build and maintained.

[arkom]

I bought a townhouse in a Sansiri moo ban, build quality is good but not perfect, have had some minor issues but they were pretty quick to fix it. So far no major issues yet. Main reason I bought was because price was reasonable and location was not too far from the city.

The Home Care service they advertise while making a sales pitch IMHO sucks, but maybe it depends on who the rep is. For us it was a younger guy that was always either on the his phone or taking a nap in the office, never really seemed to care if we or anyone else had a problem.

I would check with them on the transformer and the power lines they use for the moo baan. In ours they didn't go a good job running the power lines and transformer was too small so every month it blow out. They kept telling us that it was area wide problem but in a non Sansiri development next to us everything was fine. After complaints from all the homeowners they finally gave in and changed it but it didn't completely fix the problem, as every now and then it fault for a few seconds. I have checked with friends who live in the area they never have any issues with power outages or faults.

Another issue is to check if they have a contract with TOT, if they do you will stuck with for phone and internet service for at least two years.

Bottom line, if I were to buy another house I would probably look at Land and Houses instead.

[Lazy Sod]

We bought a 5 year old house in a Land & House estate 7 years ago, so it's 12 years old now and no major problems in our house or the rest of the estate as far as I can tell. Sansiri seem to charge premium prices but from what I've seen L&H are better quality. Check lh.co.th to see if they have anything nearby, and bcp.co.th have second hand L&H houses for sale.

[Lazy Sod]

Khun Jean has a valid point. It worked for us.

[rgs2001uk]

We bought a 5 year old house in a Land & House estate 7 years ago, so it's 12 years old now and no major problems in our house or the rest of the estate as far as I can tell. Sansiri seem to charge premium prices but from what I've seen L&H are better quality. Check lh.co.th to see if they have anything nearby, and bcp.co.th have second hand L&H houses for sale.

Agree with the above, I have mentioned before on a previous thread, L&H seem to be the best of the developers I have seen.

[culicine]

We bought a L&H house new; after 3 years everything is fine. Some very minor cracking in the back fence, which was probably due to the fact that the village was flooded for about 6 weeks last year. The actual house seems fine though. The main issue is management and upkeep of the village and how dedicated the committee is. Ours seems fine but seems like a fees will be taking a large hike in the next few months,

[Digitalbanana]

We bought a L&H house new; after 3 years everything is fine. Some very minor cracking in the back fence, which was probably due to the fact that the village was flooded for about 6 weeks last year. The actual house seems fine though. The main issue is management and upkeep of the village and how dedicated the committee is. Ours seems fine but seems like a fees will be taking a large hike in the next few months,

If I'm not wrong when you buy it includes 4 years of maintenance fees up front? How do the management committees work after this period is up? Are the books open to see for all to see where expenses are going? Who does L&H hand over management to when all the buildings have been built and sold?

[culicine]

We bought a L&H house new; after 3 years everything is fine. Some very minor cracking in the back fence, which was probably due to the fact that the village was flooded for about 6 weeks last year. The actual house seems fine though. The main issue is management and upkeep of the village and how dedicated the committee is. Ours seems fine but seems like a fees will be taking a large hike in the next few months,

If I'm not wrong when you buy it includes 4 years of maintenance fees up front? How do the management committees work after this period is up? Are the books open to see for all to see where expenses are going? Who does L&H hand over management to when all the buildings have been built and sold?

The actual house has 5 year warranty for structure 0 L&H are paying for many road repairs in our village; I think the cracks in the road were exacerbated by the floods. It I recall, L&H managed the village for a year or so after all houses were sold. The committee is made up of folks who live in the village and they seem to do a good job most of the time. I've not asked about the books - and they probably keep two sets of books anyway I'd be interested to know where the money goes, but I still imagine kickbacks are involved. We seem to have not had too much luck with security companies. The security company we had during the floods later on demanded much higher fees. Not long after the committee refused, coincidence? We are lucky in one sense in that about 90% of houses are up-to-date with payments. Unfortunately they want to increase fees from 20 to 30 baht per square wah - bad for us as we have one of the larger plots of land.

[WorriedNoodle]

I would probably look at Land and Houses instead.

We have looked at some L&H projects this past week around the outskirts of Bangkok. It seems unless one is prepared to pay over 10MB one can expect little more than a very cramped lifestyle. For those kind of prices I would want to look elsewhere (another city or country?). On the highways there were adverts for other brand names in the 2-3MB range so I can only imagine they would be hopeless?

Two L&H projects we visited were staggering in their locations? One 7MB house on offer directly next to the southern outer ring road and directly under the ring roads flood lights. The constant drone of traffic noise made me nauseous after 20 minutes being shown around there. I couldn't wait to get the car ticket stamped and get out! The other within pain threshold of the Bang Na trad highway (I measured a constant 100dB noise level from traffic on my portable meter at the sales office!) and under the flight path of Suwanabhumi airport (when the dB moved up to 130 or so). It amazed me that people actually had bought some of the property already and we were looking at the remaining few on offer.

[trogers]

Two L&H projects we visited were staggering in their locations? One 7MB house on offer directly next to the southern outer ring road and directly under the ring roads flood lights. The constant drone of traffic noise made me nauseous after 20 minutes being shown around there. I couldn't wait to get the car ticket stamped and get out! The other within pain threshold of the Bang Na trad highway (I measured a constant 100dB noise level from traffic on my portable meter at the sales office!) and under the flight path of Suwanabhumi airport (when the dB moved up to 130 or so). It amazed me that people actually had bought some of the property already and we were looking at the remaining few on offer.

Don't be amazed. There are many shoebox condos located in similar conditions and being bought and sold. Perhaps there are people who cannot live and sleep well when the surroundings is too serene and quiet - like those who grew up in shophouses?

[Lazy Sod]

I would probably look at Land and Houses instead.

We have looked at some L&H projects this past week around the outskirts of Bangkok. It seems unless one is prepared to pay over 10MB one can expect little more than a very cramped lifestyle. For those kind of prices I would want to look elsewhere (another city or country?). On the highways there were adverts for other brand names in the 2-3MB range so I can only imagine they would be hopeless?

Two L&H projects we visited were staggering in their locations? One 7MB house on offer directly next to the southern outer ring road and directly under the ring roads flood lights. The constant drone of traffic noise made me nauseous after 20 minutes being shown around there. I couldn't wait to get the car ticket stamped and get out! The other within pain threshold of the Bang Na trad highway (I measured a constant 100dB noise level from traffic on my portable meter at the sales office!) and under the flight path of Suwanabhumi airport (when the dB moved up to 130 or so). It amazed me that people actually had bought some of the property already and we were looking at the remaining few on offer.

Unfortunately it does seem that many of the new L&H housing projects are in undesirable places near the new airport, another reason to look at second hand.

[RAZZELL]

On a similar note...

Q house any good?

http://www.qh.co.th/

RAZZ

[Tim Scrase Gosling]

Yes they are very goos

[isawasnake]

I think the best way to go is just assume everything will fall apart, because it will. You need to turn into a handy man here if you want to own imo. If a friend of mine had no proclivities to be handy, I'd 100% advise not to own here.

People have said good things about Sansiri, so you can say they are one of the best IN THAILAND. Not saying much. Just assume it will fall apart in your negotiations. These places are overpriced anyway. You just can't pay untrained workers 200 baht a day and get quality.

Finalizing contracts are usually dependent upon inspections. You could draw out your inspection/repair time and see how the place holds up. There is always plenty for them to fix. They "fix" things here, and the before and after are essentially the same. It is honestly so ridiculous. I'm rambling now but my conclusion on these matters is the strategy here is to annoy you with almost non-existent and time-consuming "repairs" until you either 1) get sick of them and just pay or 2) throw your hands up and decide to not buy, and they sell to somebody else.

Edited April 8, 2013 by isawasnake

[culicine]

Well after 3 years our L&H house is still holding up well, even though we were flooded for 6 weeks with 30 cms of water through the place. The only crack is in the concrete fence. Probably a bit of settling after the flood water removed sediment. There's the usual fine cracks in the surface concrete but every place I've seen gets those. No leaks in the roof during the monsoon season, and the roads in the sois never flood during normal rains. Not a bad buy and only 10-15 mins from Central Chaengwattana:)

[SteveLynch]

Hi all

My self and my wife recently purchased a Sansiri property in Bkk ,have to say I was extremely happy with the way I was dealt with by the company

After nearly a year of looking at everything in Bangkok I settled with this company ,initially at some of the projects I was met by lazy and uninterested sales teams until I woke up and demanded better service ..it was a fair whack of money ...most the new projects will have show houses to woo you with fancy furniture but the real trick is trying to get in to a older project and have a look about ..not an easy task but I just pretend I made a wrongturn then asked to do a u turn then kept on driving .the missus would explain to the next security guard what we were up to and we were mostly allowed to drive around and have a gander

Comparing Sansiri to Land n House and the others ,quality on all the houses was about the same I just felt I got a better looking house with the Sansiri brand .

Sansiri habve many brands within their brand so I'd suggest to the op to get familiar with their website they have top brand Nuarsiri is top money ,Setthasiri a close second ,burasiri which is a older style home ,Saransiri next ,Habitia which are the cookie cutter jobs

The habitia at safari world come with 100 w of land on every model so the smallest one is a pretty good deal.

I would advice anybody buying a home in Thailand as anywhere in the world a decent tool box and a step ladder would be a good purchase ,things will need fixing every other month

Also try not leave yourself with a definate signing over date because you want to move in .be prepared the final inspection process will need redoing ,take your time and be stubborn with getting the things you want done properly

I employed a surveyor who did a excellent job he picked up on the slighted thing even the gap between the doors on the presses in the thai kitchen were out by a few mm from top to bottem ,the bottom stair on the main stairwell was off by 2 mm they pulled out the stairwell and started again

You can demand quality if you are not in a rush to move in

(If anybody wants the inspectors details pm me )

There are many things I have done since I moved in fire alarms ,security gate ,outside cameras I totally rewired the light fittings as they were suspect to me but up to Thai building standards

I'm expecting to repaint the entire house within 3 years and will replace the less than solid doors inside some of the materials used are not the very best butthen we bought a house that cost the same as a very small unit in Europe or Australia .

With these housing companies you can really push on special deals ,aircon ,gardens ,,fitted shower screens so chance your arm ..I'm lucky my other half is a hard woman when it comes to sales people we have had no troubles with after sales service and follow ups on certain small issues

Anyway if you are looking at buying a home I have amassed a huge knowledge on nearly every project in the Bangkok area ,I spent every other day looking and looking and waiting for floods to come

Rather long winded post I know hopefully somebody will find some helpful advice (pm me if you want to know any more )

Kind regards

Steve