There are Moo Bans and Condominium projects going up at an alarming rate in Chiang Mai. Where are they going to get all the buyers from... or is it just money laundering???

I just bought a house. The developer who is a friend says the government has BORROWED so much over the last few years snd fiktered a lot to banks to LEND AT FAVOURABLE RATES to big developers..land h. punna..siri etc... they are buiding on speculation and cheap borrowed government money just the same as before 1997.

And they cant sell.

They are hoping and were hoping for chinese influxes but as the developers buikd and try to SELL the givernment only allows thais to buy and borrow on wages they cannot afford to sustain a mortgage.

Buy if you take a mortgage over tge property in your name or in a BOI company. Otherwise BEWARE

Please please use the spell checker

Prices don't drop when there is speculative investment. Sounds more like the market is over-supplied and heading for a fall. This is generally good news, as it means that more people can afford to buy homes. This is one thing I really like about Thailand - the availability of cheap homes. It's a complete contrast to the UK, when most people, including the government, think it's great to have property become so expansive that many can't afford it.

Actuly I don't see it much of a comparison at all, I'm the midlands you can buy a semi for the equivalent of ฿2.5m and it will be built better than any home in Thailand for ฿5m. Houses in Thailand are crap, the don't hold isolation at all. To build a 3 bed 2 bathroom detached house here with a garden the size in the uk with the same quality and standard in the suburbs of Bangkok will cost you the same as the superbas in Thailand. I have been looking for a house in Thailand for years and there are no real bargains, just cheap crap, even the roads on in the housing estates are absolute crap and after 5 years no want to buy your secon hand piece of crp.

So the end realt is, the houses in Thailand compared to the uk are realy not that cheap!

Fantastic5, that is a good point, the quality on a 2 million baht house is not good at all, at 5 million it is a bit better but not much. If you want something decent you have to do it yourself...only experience I have of that is a Thai friend that designed his own place and built it and it is nice...but he's got money...re-sale market is also screwy, shame as I wish my gf could sell the new place she bought 3 years ago.

Off topic posts and replies have been removed.

Hahahahaha!!!! They have eyes, yet they see not. Or maybe they wiped the steam off the mirror. Funny!

When people buy condos on the fringes of the city in beautiful, empty high rises and talk at length about how much they'll make and how the surrounding communities will be built up, oh, yes! This is bubble land.

The smart money is in the new units in city center. Though they seem expensive, their value will not plummet when the bubble pops.

Hahahahaha!!!! They have eyes, yet they see not. Or maybe they wiped the steam off the mirror. Funny!

When people buy condos on the fringes of the city in beautiful, empty high rises and talk at length about how much they'll make and how the surrounding communities will be built up, oh, yes! This is bubble land.

The smart money is in the new units in city center. Though they seem expensive, their value will not plummet when the bubble pops.

A large percentage of the new ones downtown aren't occupied yet either though.

Oh crap, this reminds me of California, where the whole global impasse started.

Oh crap, this reminds me of California, where the whole global impasse started.

It isn't anywhere near that bad. But yes, some steam needs to be pulled out of property business.

Bob Hope made a big pile of money in real estate...when asked what was his secret he said it was very simple....go just outside the city limits of any town and buy property then wait for the city to grow/annex and sell.

Real estate world wide is not so very different...the tide comes in the tide goes out. ..most likely it will go up and crash and go up again and crash again...the trick is to be on the correct side of the cycles.

Bob Hope made a big pile of money in real estate...when asked what was his secret he said it was very simple....go just outside the city limits of any town and buy property then wait for the city to grow/annex and sell.

Real estate world wide is not so very different...the tide comes in the tide goes out. ..most likely it will go up and crash and go up again and crash again...the trick is to be on the correct side of the cycles.

Talking about tides and bangkok island isn't particularly perceptive.

Bob would have been underwater periodically.

In '97 the baht was pegged to the dollar. That wasn't the real problem".

So if they did collapse like they did in 97, that would have nothing to do with the value of the Baht ? You're hillarious but go ahead and keep digging and bailing.

Please tell me where I mentioned the current value of the baht? I did say that if the RE market and banks collapsed like they did in '97, that the baht would also crash. I'd say "try to keep up" but it wouldn't do any good.

You are something else. I have no idea how you get your ideas, or how you read into things I say what you do. You quoted my statement where I said that if there is a crash like '97, the baht will crash again. It's right above your post.

I may be "hilarious" to you.

I'm not digging and bailing. I have been consistent in my statements and predictions for many months. This thing is coming down.

In '97 the baht was pegged to the dollar. That wasn't the real problem. The problem was the Thai economy, bubbled and burst, and the baht had to float away from the dollar because it simply had no value. Had it not been pegged to the dollar it would have crashed sooner. As soon as it was decoupled from the dollar it crashed.

This time it isn't coupled to the dollar and it will go where the market places it. Inflows of baht into Thailand to buy the SET and real estate and government bonds drive up the value of the baht because every transaction in Thailand has to be done in baht. Foreigners who rush in with capital have to buy baht, driving up the price of the baht. The very day that people want their money out of Thailand, that dynamic will reverse as people sell baht to get Western currencies. That will drive the value of the baht down.

It's just so simple.

Oh please stop NS, I can't take it any more, my sides are beging to hurt.

No it wasn't the real problem. The baht was already losing value. Being pegged to the dollar just propped it up artificially for a while. But the instant it was decoupled from the dollar it crashed. The real problem was the underlying Thai economy.

I don't hope to be able to explain it to you but it would have crashed either way. The dollar just propped it up a little longer so that when it did crash, the crash was harder and steeper. Dollar or no, the end result of the value of the baht would have been the same.

It would be nice if you could have a discussion without acting like a child.

In '97 the baht was pegged to the dollar. That wasn't the real problem".

So if they did collapse like they did in 97, that would have nothing to do with the value of the Baht ? You're hillarious but go ahead and keep digging and bailing.

Please tell me where I mentioned the current value of the baht? I did say that if the RE market and banks collapsed like they did in '97, that the baht would also crash. I'd say "try to keep up" but it wouldn't do any good.

You are something else. I have no idea how you get your ideas, or how you read into things I say what you do. You quoted my statement where I said that if there is a crash like '97, the baht will crash again. It's right above your post.

I may be "hilarious" to you.

I'm not digging and bailing. I have been consistent in my statements and predictions for many months. This thing is coming down.

In '97 the baht was pegged to the dollar. That wasn't the real problem. The problem was the Thai economy, bubbled and burst, and the baht had to float away from the dollar because it simply had no value. Had it not been pegged to the dollar it would have crashed sooner. As soon as it was decoupled from the dollar it crashed.

This time it isn't coupled to the dollar and it will go where the market places it. Inflows of baht into Thailand to buy the SET and real estate and government bonds drive up the value of the baht because every transaction in Thailand has to be done in baht. Foreigners who rush in with capital have to buy baht, driving up the price of the baht. The very day that people want their money out of Thailand, that dynamic will reverse as people sell baht to get Western currencies. That will drive the value of the baht down.

It's just so simple.

Oh please stop NS, I can't take it any more, my sides are beging to hurt.

No it wasn't the real problem. The baht was already losing value. Being pegged to the dollar just propped it up artificially for a while. But the instant it was decoupled from the dollar it crashed. The real problem was the underlying Thai economy.

I don't hope to be able to explain it to you but it would have crashed either way. The dollar just propped it up a little longer so that when it did crash, the crash was harder and steeper. Dollar or no, the end result of the value of the baht would have been the same.

It would be nice if you could have a discussion without acting like a child.

The underlying problem was that fixing the exchange rate removed the risk to borrowing usd to finance Thai baht lending.

It propped it up until one foreign bank wouldn't roll over the loan for the umpteenth time and wanted his principle back. Fundamental mismatch in lending time frames, because no one thought the peg would ever be taken away.

Well I see in one of GeorgeBKK's tweets that the Commerce Minister has assigned someone to "explain" Thailand's rice scheme to Moody's which is ready to lower Thailand's credit rating - again.

This should be interesting. I've heard about ten explanations. I wonder if Moody's will be told to look for 700 bil baht owed to the agricultural bank, or if they will be shown all of the "stored" rice.

Well I see in one of GeorgeBKK's tweets that the Commerce Minister has assigned someone to "explain" Thailand's rice scheme to Moody's which is ready to lower Thailand's credit rating - again.

This should be interesting. I've heard about ten explanations. I wonder if Moody's will be told to look for 700 bil baht owed to the agricultural bank, or if they will be shown all of the "stored" rice.

In the other paper, yingluck is demanding a rebuttal of Moody's statement. As though that is going to any more than pour fuel on the flames.

"You Moody's idiots just don't understand supply and demand for rice", will be the gist of it I guess.

Well I see in one of GeorgeBKK's tweets that the Commerce Minister has assigned someone to "explain" Thailand's rice scheme to Moody's which is ready to lower Thailand's credit rating - again.

This should be interesting. I've heard about ten explanations. I wonder if Moody's will be told to look for 700 bil baht owed to the agricultural bank, or if they will be shown all of the "stored" rice.

In the other paper, yingluck is demanding a rebuttal of Moody's statement. As though that is going to any more than pour fuel on the flames.

"You Moody's idiots just don't understand supply and demand for rice", will be the gist of it I guess.

Damn, those pesky foreign credit rating agency's.

BTW I did notice that most of the annoyingly distracting rusty frameworks from 1997 in and around Bangkok have been removed by now. That's good. They were a real eyesore and tended to distract investors looking around.

Only took 10-15 years.... What's wrong with that???

Well I see in one of GeorgeBKK's tweets that the Commerce Minister has assigned someone to "explain" Thailand's rice scheme to Moody's which is ready to lower Thailand's credit rating - again.

This should be interesting. I've heard about ten explanations. I wonder if Moody's will be told to look for 700 bil baht owed to the agricultural bank, or if they will be shown all of the "stored" rice.

Surely the only man to explain Thailand's rice scheme to Moodys is Thaksin himself. It's all his idea after all.

Well I see in one of GeorgeBKK's tweets that the Commerce Minister has assigned someone to "explain" Thailand's rice scheme to Moody's which is ready to lower Thailand's credit rating - again.

This should be interesting. I've heard about ten explanations. I wonder if Moody's will be told to look for 700 bil baht owed to the agricultural bank, or if they will be shown all of the "stored" rice.

In the other paper, yingluck is demanding a rebuttal of Moody's statement. As though that is going to any more than pour fuel on the flames.

"You Moody's idiots just don't understand supply and demand for rice", will be the gist of it I guess.

Damn, those pesky foreign credit rating agency's.

The exact quote is that, "latest information" on the rice subsidy scheme will be used to rebut the Moody's report.

Which rabbit she is going to produce from the hat God knows because the have barely sold a grain. Cue "the press should report responsibly better than truthfully to maintain harmony and stability".

Nothing to see here, just move along

BANGKOK, 4 June 2013 (NNT) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has instructed the Ministry of Finance to provide Thailands economic information for Moodys before it downgrades the countrys credit rating. Ms Yingluck on Tuesday said she had asked the Ministry of Finance to closely monitor Moodys analysis and confirmed that the government was ready to provide the agency with complete information prior to the rating downgrade. Asked why the government did not clarify the rice pledging schemes loss of profit to the public, the premier said the loss was still unofficial, adding that she had not yet received the loss figures from the Ministry of Commerce. http://thainews.prd.go.th/centerweb/newsen/NewsDetail?NT01_NewsID=WNECO5606040010006

I think someone should rewrite that quickly.

The prime minister has no available figures to accurately estimate the loss, despite a leak from another government department last week.

Whoooooooops. How can a prime minster say something like this?

The last thing the Thai government wants to do is become transparent about the finances of the rice scheme or of its banks. There will be a lot of nonsense talk, but no real disclosures. The PM seems to think she can shine Moody's on with sweet talk.

With all of the graft, I doubt that anyone in the government could give a real accounting anyway.

The last thing the Thai government wants to do is become transparent about the finances of the rice scheme or of its banks. There will be a lot of nonsense talk, but no real disclosures. The PM seems to think she can shine Moody's on with sweet talk.

With all of the graft, I doubt that anyone in the government could give a real accounting anyway.

With so many people living in Thailand able to see right through the rice scam I'm pretty sure Moodys will have a handle on it too!

Yingluck would have to have the feminine powers of Garbo and Monroe combined to dazzle those number crunchers, not Lady Gaga's.

The last thing the Thai government wants to do is become transparent about the finances of the rice scheme or of its banks. There will be a lot of nonsense talk, but no real disclosures. The PM seems to think she can shine Moody's on with sweet talk.

With all of the graft, I doubt that anyone in the government could give a real accounting anyway.

With so many people living in Thailand able to see right through the rice scam I'm pretty sure Moodys will have a handle on it too!

Yingluck would have to have the feminine powers of Garbo and Monroe combined to dazzle those number crunchers, not Lady Gaga's.

The issue is really that it cannot be sustained. It was meant to be revolving fund, but it doesn't turn.

Continue it, and spend more or stop it, and risk losing the election. Either way, it has serious consequences.

Well neversure and I have posted extensively about the property bubble here in LOS...But we were hailed down by most member as tin foil hat wearing lunies...go figure...

They were nice to you. When I suggested years ago that a wise person wanting to know what was really happening in the Bangkok property market should take a walk around some of these condo developments at night and count how many lights were on they thought I was ready for the funny farm. Actually for the health of the population it's just as well that many of those units will never be fully occupied. I've watched massive developments rise up with no thought given to how an already inadequate sewage system would cope.

Maybe this has been said, but if when Moody's downgrades the credit rating again, Thailand will have to pay an even higher interest rate to sell bonds to finance its deficit spending and its debt. Buyers will want more money to justify the risk. This will be a double whammy, putting Thailand into an even deeper hole.

So many here put policies like the rice subsidy here as the main reason for the apparent slide. I agree. However I also think that it is probably only policies like this that keep Thailand from sliding into the abyss. Peasants can be a remarkable revolutionary force guided by the right rhetoric as Louise XVI could testify if he still had his head.

So many here put policies like the rice subsidy here as the main reason for the apparent slide. I agree. However I also think that it is probably only policies like this that keep Thailand from sliding into the abyss. Peasants can be a remarkable revolutionary force guided by the right rhetoric as Louise XVI could testify if he still had his head.

I totally agree witht he second part of what you wrote but it's not clear to me what you are trying to say at the start of your post, are you suggesting that the rice subsidy program is the cause of an economic slide?

only now? many houses in my moo bahn are for sale since some people bought them many years ago... some even got the "owned by bank" now as they seem to have abandoned their loan

still the moo bahn is still building new as they don't care, once it is sold, it is off their hands