Best Areas To Live In Chiang Mai

[chanchao]

Yes.. Really it would be an anomaly to find a rental *house* where there would be any sort of issue with having dogs. Condominiums/appartments may be different of course.

So Melanie, I think your main issue is not the dogs, but the much more basic issue of 'finding a rental house while you're not in Chiang Mai yet'. That's always tricky, especially as what you see on the web/agents easily costs twice of what you'd find just looking around locally. Of course price may not be an issue, but you'd STILL want to have a long hard look at a place and check for the usual issues before committing to any rent deal.

Normally I would advise people to take the 'steps' approach: Stay in a hotel or guesthouse for a day or two, then if that's okay then book it for a month, in that month you look around for rentals, then end of the month you move in. However with dogs you'd have to be a bit careful about a hotel/guesthouse selection. I travelled a lot with my dog, but then I (and the dog) don't mind it when the dog spends the night in the garden or parking lot watched over by the parking lot person. Some Western people seem to want their dogs in bed with them (or at least in the room; then it gets harder).

[chanchao]

Heh, reply to self:

what you see on the web/agents easily costs twice of what you'd find just looking around locally.

Rubbish! I just checked and it's more like 3-4 times the price of what you find locally. Locally when just driving/biking around you can find reasonable detached 2 storey, 3 bedroom houses for well under 10K. (Starting around 6, 7, 8K.)

But just for laughs I had a look at a real estate site, one that's pretty good for 'for sale' property, but good grief look at what people try for rent! (It's most likely the renters that want this kind of money ans think they can get it by going to a real estate agent and rent to foreign expats; I don't think it's the real estate company itself inflating prices, though I could be wrong.)

Ok, comedy parade time:

http://www.jasminehomes.co.th/listingview.php?listingID=620

This is a small-ish 3 bedroom house with fake wood all over it. Land area is a bit more than usual at 124 sq. wa, but still, 30,000 baht!!! That's actually more money than mortgage payments would be if you just buy it and stick it in a bank. A house like that would cost new probably just under or just over 3 million (because of the large land area and slighly above-average standing of this particular development), so 30K rent is completely outrageous. I've been in this particular development and looked at this particular type of house. Some people try it with offering it 'fully furnished' but honestly furniture of the ubiquitous pressed wood variety is cheap. For laughs, click on the picture with the caption 'Western Kitchen'.......................... Sorry, but that is NOT a western kitchen: That's a concrete tiled worktop with kitchen cupboards gone AWOL.

Next: http://www.jasminehomes.co.th/listingview.php?listingID=576

Ok, at least here I indeed see a 'Western Kitchen' when looking that that picture. This is actually a big and modern house and the for sale price (especially after adding kitchen & bathroom stuff) could be 4.5 million. But.. 45K rent.. Houses are a very close together though: WHY do they do that in Chiang Mai.. Land is affordable, when building a detached house make sure there's actually some space around.. why cram a nice house in 100 sq. Wa area..

Next: http://www.jasminehomes.co.th/listingview.php?listingID=571

Pretty typical detached house for Chiang Mai. Nothing wrong with it except the price. It's a tiny bit newer and bigger than most houses in that development, but the slightly older ones (that exclude the bedroom downstairs) are the ones you can rent for under 10K. 30K !? Please.

Next : http://www.jasminehomes.co.th/listingview.php?listingID=571

28K.. Airconditioner is of the really nasty variety. And whoever bought that furniture probably had a little to much of something or another.

But isn't there anything cheaper?! Well, here's what agents might call 'cheap' : http://www.jasminehomes.co.th/listingview.php?listingID=338

Yuck! and 17K !! It's basically a row-house (usually called 'Townhouse' here) and I've rented them for as little as 3500 baht. Perhaps more common is 4500, even 5000, but 17K is ludicrous.

So, looking at this I'd really advise against trying to find something through an agent / website.

On the other hand, it's nice to imagine what my house would go for on this site.. For sure more than mortgage payments + maintenance costs. Perhaps with Chiang Mai growing the prices will go the way of Bangkok, where it's hard to buy anything approaching common Chiang Mai type detached houses under 5 million.

Cheers,

Chanchao

[cmsally]

Is it just me, or have other people noticed that often the sale prices are quite reasonable but the rentals way over the top?

[Ajarn]

Is it just me, or have other people noticed that often the sale prices are quite reasonable but the rentals way over the top?

Well, based on where I used to live in the US, they normally figured it at 1/100th of the sales price. When I've thought about it here, it seems a lot cheaper... Could be just a few greedy landlords, too. Also, it seems to me that most renters are farang, with Thais being buyers

[chanchao]

1/100th of the sales price I think is not realistic in Thailand. Of course with that I shoudl also state that outside of Thaialnd the building owner has more responsibilities in terms of upkeep and fixing things compared to Thailand, and the renter has more rights / protection.

I think in Thailand the building owners mostly don't figure in maintenance and don't really expect to be paying for many things that break, or they'd try to share the cost with the renter and so on. Same for renter protection.. there isn't much of it worth pursuing.

So those are two additional reasons why rents are mostly cheaper in Thailand, plus, for Chiang Mai, the huge number of available houses that sit empty. Plus, the perception among potential Thai renters that it's silly to 'throw money away' on rent when you can spend it paying off something you own. This is especially true when you get to the nicer houses / higher rents; Thais would just about rent a townhouse if it was cheap and short term, but paying 10-15K or even more on rent? No way.... Then they'd just buy that place and have mortgage payments that are lower than that.

[lotus eater]

I looked int availability and prices of house rental in Chiang Rai. Curiously - in the context of 'supply and demand' etc - though Chiang Mai has vastly more places available and Chiang Rai not much at all, CM rents seem far, far higher.

The fact of CM's superior facilities, commerce, culture, etc etc should be factored into the supply/demand equation to a great extent - but then perhaps thai landlords don't think along rational economic lines??

[chanchao]

> seem

Again, you just cannot compare on the web. Prices are all over the place. Best to compare on the ground. And I doubt a decision to live in either Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai is a decision based on rental/accommodation options because both should have plenty, and be good value for money. Yes, it would make sense if Chiang Rai was marginally cheaper for the same distance from town, however building a 2 million baht house costs 2 million baht no matter where you build it; Chiang Rai would have somewhat lower land prices which would explain any price difference. Note that land prices inside a compound are typically double of the price of the land just next to it.

For both provinces the approach is the same; go live there first and explore what areas of town you'd want to be in, then find an available house that you like.

Getting back to those really high rents the real estate companies advertise: If I was charging 45K baht then I'd make very sure that I'd offer extra services that would help warrant such a price. So it would be completely ready to go, I'd throw in a maid service (as maids are cheap BUT hard to find good maids, so that's extra value), I'd make sure people get picked up from the airport, driven to the house, have someone there to plug in the ADSL router, open the gas, plug in the fridge (which will have snacks & fizzy drinks thrown in) and show people how the airconditioners and hot showers work. Then I'd make sure they have a place to call when 'stuff' happens or needs to happen, i.e. get new gas/water delivered, the garden done, know where to call when the ADSL craps out, or help with just about anything else to help people find their way about town.

THEN I may have put in enough value to charge someone a monthly rent approaching 1/100th of the value of the house. But even then I may find that renters move when the contract is up as they will have found far cheaper places, and after gaining experience around town wouldn't require the added services. So then I'm still going to end up with a property that is empty as long a time as occupied. So that would make me wonder if I wouldn't make MORE money with a lower rent but continued occupancy compared to a high rent for 6 months, then 6 months empty.

[wolfmanjack]

Is it just me, or have other people noticed that often the sale prices are quite reasonable but the rentals way over the top?

Most of the time it is the other way around on the lower end market. I rented a house that the asking price was 1.8 milion and I paid 3,000 per month. That is 1/600th of the asking price.

[p1p]

Is it just me, or have other people noticed that often the sale prices are quite reasonable but the rentals way over the top?

Most of the time it is the other way around on the lower end market. I rented a house that the asking price was 1.8 milion and I paid 3,000 per month. That is 1/600th of the asking price.

It has always been my experience that, if you could afford to buy a house, it is much more worthwhile to put the money in a bank and use the interest to pay the rent, with leftover interest increasing the capital amount. Normally, after X years you can walk away with more money and many less hassles than if you bought and sold.

[thairedofgoa]

Good post chanchao. Just the sort of stuff I've been looking for. I'm trying to get an idea on values.

[cmsally]

Most of the time it is the other way around on the lower end market. I rented a house that the asking price was 1.8 milion and I paid 3,000 per month. That is 1/600th of the asking price.

Crikey that's cheap

Surely that can't of been in one of the OK-good moobahns.

[lotus eater]

My observation is that Chiang Mai has far, far more empty houses on the rental market than chiang rai. This should take CR rents higher or CM's lower; but the former are noticeably lower, like for like. CM landlords seem to be stubbornly leaving their houses empty.

CM agents and their properties proliferate.

CR agents and their properties are hard to find.

[chanchao]

> Crikey that's cheap

Well either that or the sale price is over the top. If it's a townhouse (not detached) then 1.8 mil is over the top (unless really big, in town, etc). For a detached single floor house ('bungalow') it's a bit on the high side but possible; not all of those single floor houses are alike, some are cheap and tiny with a ridiculous layout and go for less than a million, others can be quite nice homes. Then detached 2 storey 3 bedroom houses on small plots of land start around 1.8 million, that would be a good price. But then those don't rent for 3000 baht; I rented one of those for 5000 which was a stellar deal.

No matter how you look at it though there is a bit of a disconnect between that sale price and rental price. My guess is it's a townhouse located in the city or close to the city that they want too much money for to sell, and/or are willing to see it as an investment and will sit on it for decades if need be until they can reasonably get 1.8 mil.

It has always been my experience that, if you could afford to buy a house, it is much more worthwhile to put the money in a bank and use the interest to pay the rent, with leftover interest increasing the capital amount. Normally, after X years you can walk away with more money and many less hassles than if you bought and sold.

True, of course. Still there's that special feeling of having your own place.. I'd be the first to concede that's not very objective but for rental houses I never really went out of my way to make it a nice home and spend money improving things; but it was cheap to rent and filled the need of having a roof over my head. With your own place you suddenly want to make it perfect, resulting in a rather sudden jump in your quality of life... Like, if the bathroom is not very inspiring (to put it mildly) you WILL actually get some interior design people in who will draw up something with wood and granite and natural rocks and halogen lighting and a glass partition for the shower and a glass front towel cabinet and and replace the tiny windows with larger ones and new fancy taps and last but not least a bathtub of a size that'll fit me (Cotto's 'humpback whale' collection) and to cram it all in they will need to break down a wall and move the door and all of that will come to 60K baht and it'll be WORTH IT. No way that you'd be doing that with a rental house. (Or if a rental house already has Paris Hilton's bathroom and kitchen then it won't rent for under 10K anymore.)

Or people build their own home from scratch; then you can truly decide how you want to live. Long term I'm still eyeing something like this: http://www.dpt.go.th/04work/house_model/detail/no30.html (actually has the building plans for download Price could work out a bit higher than the sub 2 million baht estimate.

[Ajarn]

No way that you'd be doing that with a rental house.

I don't agree with that... I've been living in a nice 5,000 baht per month house, which I pay yearly to a Landlord in Phrae, who never had the time to deal with renters before, and appreciates what I've added to the house (Pool, garden, 3 waterfalls, and lots of reconstruction inside the house). I figure it's around 300k I've put into it so far.. Figure it out for the last 5 years I've been here, and, it's only another 5,000 a month... A few more years and it's a lot cheaper. And the landlord is happy, too, obviously. I like and appreciate what advantages I have as a renter; I can move anytime with no loss, no thai person to 'take' my house money (law), no worries about selling a used house...

[chanchao]

True, though of course that implies you're a good judge of character; stories abound of people who improved something in their rented home only to have the owner say 'Hey that's great, now the house is worth x000 baht more in rent'.

So you're only as secure as your relationship with the owner. Now, my personal experiences with owners I rented from have been truly excellent exceeding any (admittedly low) expectations I may have had. But even good honest people can hit hard times in Thailand and be forced to increase rent, or sell the property, or sell another property and use your rental house for his own family, etc, etc.

( Though I know what you're going to say: even if that happens you don't mind walking away from that pool as you got a lot of value/enjoyment out of it. And there's quite a lot of furniture, fixtures and equipment then you can just as easily remove and take with you. )