Survey suggests condo oversupply in Hua Hin area

[Lite Beer]

Survey suggests condo oversupply in Hua Hin area
Somluck Srimalee
The Nation

HUA HIN: -- The residential market in the Hua Hin area is showing signs of oversupply after both local and Bangkok-based developers expanded their condominium investment over the past five years.

According to a survey by Collier International (Thailand), condominium inventory supply in the general Hua Hin area will be 16,000 units next year. This would take 18 months to sell out even if there were no new residential projects launched in the location.

The survey shows some 8,800 units are expected to be completed this year, with nearly 5,000 units in the Cha-am area and about 1,880 in the Hua Hin coastal area. The remainder are split equally between the Hua Hin inland and Pranburi areas.

Many condominium projects cannot be completed by the expected date, due to a lack of construction workers, the research said.

The research also shows that many listed developers are focusing more on the condominium market outside Bangkok, with Cha-am and Hua Hin among their target locations.

LPN Development, for example, has already occupied land plots in the Hua Hin area, while another big-name developer is also looking to launch new projects in the area.The average take-up rate at the end of 2013 was about 73 per cent, around 5 per cent higher than in the previous six months. This was due to the high take-up rate at some new condominium projects launched during the year, especially by listed developers.

Some other condo developers have also launched new marketing campaigns and set up their sales booths in popular shopping malls in Bangkok in order to attract new clients.

The average take-up rate in the Hua Hin inland area was highest at around 85 per cent, because some new condominium projects from listed developers were launched in the first half of 2013. In the past year they have had high take-up rates, and some projects have sold out, said Collier.

Most buyers in the Cha-am, Hua Hin and Pranburi areas are Thai, especially in condominiums and housing development projects, while some foreign retirees own or rent condominiums or houses in the general area.

The average take-up rate of all property types in these three locations last year was roughly 72 per cent, with 68 per cent for landed development projects and 73 per cent for condominiums.

The average price of condominium and landed development projects is still similar to the previous year.Following the oversupply of condo units in Hua Hin, LPN Development has delayed the launch of three new projects, comprising 2,040 units worth Bt3.13 billion, this year.

"We have to wait and see the demand in the market," said managing director Opas Sripayak.

However, some listed property firms have continued to launch new condominium projects in Hua Hin. For example, Property Perfect will officially launch its first six-storey project, the Bella Costa Hua Hin-Koh Tao, worth Bt1.6 billion at a starting price of Bt2.95 million per unit in the third quarter.

"Although the market has shown signs of oversupply, we have confidence that our condominium project will meet customer demand," said deputy chief business development officer Wongsakorn Prasitvipat.

Since the company started to promote the project in April, it has sold 10 per cent of its value, he added.Quality Houses, meanwhile, plans to launch the Q-Seaside Hua Hin condominium, with units starting at Bt5.29 million apiece, in the second half of the year.

The project has 207 units in total.

-- The Nation 2014-06-06

[falang07]

based on what I see around Pattaya, I would say the same applies to this area, too

[Thaiready]

Time to make a 50% off asking price offer

[tkramer]

"Time to make a 50% off asking price offer"

Did your boat arrive yesterday, or the day before...?

[realenglish1]

There is an over supply of condos everywhere When is the bubble going to burst

[MRGTINGTONG]

Prices in the last few years has sky rocketed beyond its worth. 40 to 50 sq m floor area starting from on average 2.5 million baht , in England in Warwarkshire and Midlands 95 to 120 sq m starting from on average £100,000 (5.0 million baht).

On average the same price per sq m, Hua Hin way to expensive now, putting many people off.

[Krataiboy]

Sorry this is rather lengthy. But I felt it had to be said. . .

When will the destruction of the jewels in Thailands tourist crown stop?

Cha Am, where I live, and the coastal stretch between the town and its bigger neighbour Hua Hin has become one enormous building site. Land prices have rocketed and this once small and friendly, quintessentially Thai seaside resort is being transformed into yet another concrete jungle.

This is good news, of course, for the real estate developers and tourist-linked businesses busy cashing in, but a tragedy for anyone seeking an alternative to the noisy, crowded, polluted and traffic-jammed hellholes so many Thai resorts have become.

The natural beauty of the coastal scenery in this area is being utterly destroyed, along with the abundant flora and fauna which once flourished in the fields, wooded areas, marshland and other open spaces. The quiet residential streets and pleasant country lanes along which local residents and tourists alike used to amble or cycle, are increasingly busy and dangerous rat-runs between congested main roads flanked by wall-to-wall condos, resorts and ticky-tacky housing estates bought mainly not for people to live in but as investments.

I have lived in Thailand for the last 15 years and watched in despair as resort after resort has been overdeveloped to the point where the natural features and characteristics which made them appealing to visitors are destroyed. It's classic baby and bathwater stuff. Just finding a coastal resort anywhere which retains a semblance of Thainess is almost mission impossible.

When Hua Hin became (to me, at least) unbearable, I decamped a few miles up to the road to Cha Am, which was still essentially a Thai resort offering the prospect of a pleasant, civilised and affordable existence. But within a few years, as Hua Hin became increasingly crowded, Cha-Am morphed into the new killing field for big development companies. The rest, as they say, is history.

I am not at all surprised and, I have to confess, not exactly sorry - to learn about the over-supply of condos in the area. Years of relentless bulldoze-and-build on cheap, borrowed money could have only one consequence. Now that the bubble has burst - or at least starting to deflate - the central planners should take the opportunity to ask where the policy of unfettered development is leading.

Many regular foreign visitors to the Land of Smiles I chance to meet lament the way the get-rich-quick developers are systematically destroying what were once the coastal jewels in the Thailands crown - and say they will not be returning.

You can hardly blame them when the most amazing thing about Amazing Thailand is how amazingly awful some of its most famous tourist haunts have become. Hua Hin may still be a step up from the likes of Benidorm or Lanzarote, but it is unrecognizable from the pleasant, civilized and relatively quiet resort of two decades ago - and the billboards trumpeting its virtues as the Queen of Tranquility must be in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act, assuming Thailand has one.

The same, unfortunately, can be said for many other Thai resorts, not least Cha Am, still misleadingly described in some foreign holiday brochures and Internet sites as an "attractive little fishing village". If only! The truth is that if the developers have their way, formerly peaceful and pretty Cha Am will soon be as overcrowded and expensive, noisy, polluted and unappealing as its big sister down the road.

Sadly, little looks likely to change. It seems that only after every coastal town in Thailand has been transformed into that gruesomely awful concept , "an international resort", and tourists are deserting the Land of Smiles in droves for alternative, less commercialized destinations will the planners will wake up to what they have done.

By then, of course, it will be too late. They will have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

[PETERTHEEATER]

I agree with you. Note too how many developers - obliged to buy land in Cha-Am (Phetchaburi Province) due to lack of suitable coastal sites in Hua Hin (Prachuap Khirikhan Province)- have inserted 'Hua Hin' into the title of their projects to cash-in on the name.Blatant fraud if you ask me or perhaps they know something we don't?

[Loles]

BUY 1 GET 1 ?

[JimHuaHin]

Sorry this is rather lengthy. But I felt it had to be said. . .

When will the destruction of the jewels in Thailands tourist crown stop?

Cha Am, where I live, and the coastal stretch between the town and its bigger neighbour Hua Hin has become one enormous building site. Land prices have rocketed and this once small and friendly, quintessentially Thai seaside resort is being transformed into yet another concrete jungle.

This is good news, of course, for the real estate developers and tourist-linked businesses busy cashing in, but a tragedy for anyone seeking an alternative to the noisy, crowded, polluted and traffic-jammed hellholes so many Thai resorts have become.

The natural beauty of the coastal scenery in this area is being utterly destroyed, along with the abundant flora and fauna which once flourished in the fields, wooded areas, marshland and other open spaces. The quiet residential streets and pleasant country lanes along which local residents and tourists alike used to amble or cycle, are increasingly busy and dangerous rat-runs between congested main roads flanked by wall-to-wall condos, resorts and ticky-tacky housing estates bought mainly not for people to live in but as investments.

I have lived in Thailand for the last 15 years and watched in despair as resort after resort has been overdeveloped to the point where the natural features and characteristics which made them appealing to visitors are destroyed. It's classic baby and bathwater stuff. Just finding a coastal resort anywhere which retains a semblance of Thainess is almost mission impossible.

When Hua Hin became (to me, at least) unbearable, I decamped a few miles up to the road to Cha Am, which was still essentially a Thai resort offering the prospect of a pleasant, civilised and affordable existence. But within a few years, as Hua Hin became increasingly crowded, Cha-Am morphed into the new killing field for big development companies. The rest, as they say, is history.

I am not at all surprised and, I have to confess, not exactly sorry - to learn about the over-supply of condos in the area. Years of relentless bulldoze-and-build on cheap, borrowed money could have only one consequence. Now that the bubble has burst - or at least starting to deflate - the central planners should take the opportunity to ask where the policy of unfettered development is leading.

Many regular foreign visitors to the Land of Smiles I chance to meet lament the way the get-rich-quick developers are systematically destroying what were once the coastal jewels in the Thailands crown - and say they will not be returning.

You can hardly blame them when the most amazing thing about Amazing Thailand is how amazingly awful some of its most famous tourist haunts have become. Hua Hin may still be a step up from the likes of Benidorm or Lanzarote, but it is unrecognizable from the pleasant, civilized and relatively quiet resort of two decades ago - and the billboards trumpeting its virtues as the Queen of Tranquility must be in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act, assuming Thailand has one.

The same, unfortunately, can be said for many other Thai resorts, not least Cha Am, still misleadingly described in some foreign holiday brochures and Internet sites as an "attractive little fishing village". If only! The truth is that if the developers have their way, formerly peaceful and pretty Cha Am will soon be as overcrowded and expensive, noisy, polluted and unappealing as its big sister down the road.

Sadly, little looks likely to change. It seems that only after every coastal town in Thailand has been transformed into that gruesomely awful concept , "an international resort", and tourists are deserting the Land of Smiles in droves for alternative, less commercialized destinations will the planners will wake up to what they have done.

By then, of course, it will be too late. They will have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

As I have posted several times on TV, I cannot agree with you more ... Hua Hin is being destroyed.

Even some Thai friends from Bangkok who have condos here are trying to sell their assets here as they feel that Hua Hin on the weekends is just like Bangkok, and the beaches are becoming 'crowded and dirty'!!!

[belg]

so land prices skyrocket and nothing to do with farang that cannot land... so it is all chines thai people / families & businesses that are speculating and earning big bucks

off course, mister farang cannot buy land for his own house, as some people here claim it is a good thing, as it would drive the price up for the locals...

[ableguy]

I agree with you. Note too how many developers - obliged to buy land in Cha-Am (Phetchaburi Province) due to lack of suitable coastal sites in Hua Hin (Prachuap Khirikhan Province)- have inserted 'Hua Hin' into the title of their projects to cash-in on the name.Blatant fraud if you ask me or perhaps they know something we don't?

Lived here in hua hin five years, moving out ASAP. Going north, the town. Is now a cess pit, and is so ugly from advertising boards for condos, traffic stand still every weekend, you could not give me a condo free to make me stay here.