HELP! Investment advice please!

[WorkingTourist]

Even an amateur can easily make 20%/annum safely

No way you can safely make 20% p.a. — even 10% p.a. comes with the risk of losing 50% in a market crash/correction.

If it was that safe and easy even for amateurs, then people should take out a second mortgage and use the money for investment. Oh wait… we have already been through that a few times before, and I don’t recall it ending well…

[MaeJoMTB]

On the contrary. The advice is very sound - don't invest in Thailand.

Your post offers no help at all, only choosing to criticize posters looking to help.

What's your advice then - share your experience/ font of knowledge - if you have any.

I presume that post is directed at me.

There's absolutely no reason not to invest in Thailand provided you know what you're getting into. The banks here are financially secure - much more so than many in the UK. (Look at the dire state of RBS and Coop. And consider that Mervyn King recently said that British banks are too weak to weather another financial crisis) Furthermore, bank deposits are currently protected here up to 50 million Baht (just over a million pounds). UK banks only have depositor protection for the first £85,000.

My post helps the OP by pointing out that those posters who are looking to help are giving seriously flawed advice because they are totally ignoring exchange rate risk. If the OP had a lot of money this would be less of an issue, but apparently he doesn't.

And I shared my advice back on the first page. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/805166-help-investment-advice-please/#entry9139317

Civil war, all foreigners ejected without notice ........... what you gonna do with all your money and investments in Thailand then?

or

Traffic offense/upset immigration officer/problem with an important Thai/minor drug bust or drugs planted by corrupt cop/assault complaint from nutty Thai gf/etc. ..... arrested and deported immediately, what you gonna do with all your money and investments when you are barred from the country for 10 years?

Edited March 4, 2015 by MaeJoMTB

[SGD]

Whilst I would err on the side of caution and look at real non Thai investments, there are ways to make property investment work in Thailand. Of course, we are not talking about speculative new build nonsense but rather a more mundane investment into existing well run condos, which may operate a collective marketing policy to tourists; this is where the income is at, not some rental to an expat.

A Bt1.25 to Bt1.5m investment should return the magic 1% per month after fees if properly managed. Pick up the right place and you can add to that significantly, getting up over 15% pa but you need to understand the market and the gap between long term rental costs and tourist rental costs. At times, this gap closes too much and further investments are inadvisable.

[dennisrobertpell]

If it was my money i would put half into gold (could store it in Singapore)the rest Bangkok bank

[fletchsmile]

How can you possibly know how secure the banks are in view of the numerous recent articles such as in Forbes magazine warning of Thailand being a bubble economy. Even three Thai people that were tycoons before the 1997 crash said the conditions in Thailand now are just the same as they were then because of a huge build up of debt. The banks may well end up sitting on huge volumes of non-performing loans once again.

The best way to know how secure a bank is to look at its credit rating. After all, these ratings are prepared by experts in the field with the full cooperation of the bank and so are far more reliable source of information than an article written by a journalist in a magazine.

So, for example, Krung Sri's long term debt is rated Baa1 (Moody's), BBB+ (S&P), A- (Fitch). Bangkok bank is similarly rated BBB+ (S&P) and BBB+ (Fitch).

Compare that with The Co-op Bank at B - rating watch negative (Fitch) and Caa2 - negative outlook (Moody's)

Or Royal Bank of Scotland group at Baa2 - negative outlook (Moody's), BBB- (S&P) and A (Fitch)

There's absolutely no reason to think that Thai banks are particularly insecure. In fact, some are in better shape than some UK banks. And even if they were, there's still the government's generous depositor protection scheme.

" The best way to know how secure a bank is to look at its credit rating "

What? The rating agencies LOL. they were dishonest in 2008 and they will still be dishonest this time

Inside Job - The Rating Agencies

For a lay person using credit rating agencies' ratings for issuers such as banks, sovereigns and corporate issuers are a useful opinion to look at for credit worthiness, and likely to be better than anything that individual lay person would come up with.

Let's not confuse that though with the mess rating agencies made rating certain securities or instruments, particularly securitisations, CDOs and the like, which the youtube video is referring to, not to mention the conflicts of interest that came up there in how ratings are assigned in the first place for these securities instruments compared to how they are assigned for an issuer rating.

The former they have been doing a statistically reasonable job for years, and as there's some pretty decent correlations between the issuer ratings they assign and risk of default. This would apply to Thai banks.

The latter were newer, often more esoteric financial instruments, where they ballsed up on many levels, including accurate quantifying the risks, transparency and who was paying

BTW: AAA for an issuer doesn't mean an issuer will never default, and is an opinion (usually a decent one) on the likelihood of a default within a given time frame, often 1 year, eg as an indication AAA might have a default probability of 0.01% (one in ten thousand), single A 0.1% (one in a thousand), CCC 10% (1 in 10). Get together a large enough population of these and you will eventually find defaults for any rating, just the higher ones happen less frequently than the lower ones. So that higher rating issuers default now and again doesn't mean the whole system is wrong. Most Thai banks are investment grade (BBB-) or above, which is a pretty reasonable reflection of their credit worthiness.

BTW2: Worth also noting that Thai banks generally didn't and don't issue any where near the level of the type of securities that US banks and Europeans banks did which went pear shaped, and are being referred to in the video. And in many cases Thai banks didn't and don't issue or even hold for trading/investment any at all. So the ratings Thai banks get are reasonable opinions, and they are quite distanced from the balls up rating agencies made on securitisations for US and European banks on those specific securities.

To bring back on topic, I've personally no worries about sticking a few million baht in Thai banks, when it comes to credit worthiness. When 2008 hit I'd even go as far as I felt safer having some money here in Thai banks than it all parked in UK or US. In addition to credit worthiness, people should also think about liquidity in the picture too. Most of the top Thai commercial banks have ample liquidity, and are/were less reliant on interbank funding then Northern Rock for example.

Someone mentioned deposit protection (DPA) above and the level might drop next year from THB 50mio to THb 1mio per person per bank. This may or may not happen, and has already been delayed and not implemented before. For OP and 99%+ of people in Thailand the simple solution is spread your money between banks if and when it happens, eg OPs THB 800k for his retirement visa with one bank, the rest with others. No bad idea either given the variability in service

Also bear in mind the DPA covers only THB deposits, for foreign currency deposits they are not covered. So if OP is keeping GBP, better to keep it in UK, protected by the UK's deposit insurance. Similarly Singapore park your SGD there as they don't cover foreign currencies either

Cheers

Fletch

Edited March 4, 2015 by fletchsmile

[Jaggg88]

54, 200k pounds and no debt? at 54, you are now too old to really enjoy life....so maybe spend the money on a 30-year old thai woman and make her happy!!!

i'm just kidding. i would bet it all on manchester united in their next game and then have some real money!!!

nah....how about buy 5 really nice cars and waste it all on nice things and then start over and make it a challenge!!!

they say the average american only has 3k in savings and tons of debt.....so you are not really living a fun life!!!!

look....200k pounds can get you a membership into my club. Actually, I charge 300k, but for a limited time I can hook you up!!!! offer expires soon!!!!

bet it all on man utd next game.....that's by far the worst advice I've ever heard....even as a joke!

[Jaggg88]

54, 200k pounds and no debt? at 54, you are now too old to really enjoy life....so maybe spend the money on a 30-year old thai woman and make her happy!!!

i'm just kidding. i would bet it all on manchester united in their next game and then have some real money!!!

nah....how about buy 5 really nice cars and waste it all on nice things and then start over and make it a challenge!!!

they say the average american only has 3k in savings and tons of debt.....so you are not really living a fun life!!!!

look....200k pounds can get you a membership into my club. Actually, I charge 300k, but for a limited time I can hook you up!!!! offer expires soon!!!!

Bet it all on man utd .....that's the worst advice I've ever heard....bar none!...even as a joke

[happydude303]

To all that disagree with what I said well that's up to you , and mainly the op , but in England specially the south of England a three bed house can get up to 900 pound a month in rent and also in England house never lose money they gain , yes you have the odd dips in The market but it soon comes back in fact England high demand for house and also mortgages are hard to get for the young so rent is the main option , so it is a good invest , there is also and old saying about investing on Bricks and mortar

[happydude303]

Oh and investing in houses in Thailand is not good , as they don't gain money and most Thai don't buy second hand houses , but Maybe building house and selling new house would be good but you would have to trust some Thai with all your money . F that

[canuckoverseas]

If this is play money, by all means invest it and take the risk. If this is your bread money, meant to keep a roof over your head, keep it as safe as possible. Preferably in a bank offshore with stellar reputation, or just leave it in the UK.

[Asiantravel]

To all that disagree with what I said well that's up to you , and mainly the op , but in England specially the south of England a three bed house can get up to 900 pound a month in rent and also in England house never lose money they gain , yes you have the odd dips in The market but it soon comes back in fact England high demand for house and also mortgages are hard to get for the young so rent is the main option , so it is a good invest , there is also and old saying about investing on Bricks and mortar

The fact that you can get £900 a month today doesn't mean you will still be able to get it next month or in six months time? The voices warning about another 2008 style crisis (but even worse this time) are getting louder from billionaire money managers and even including David Cameron.For a sitting Prime Minister to say these things I think it's time for everybody to sit up and listen.

If people start losing their jobs they will have great difficulty meeting mortgage and rental payments?

David Cameron warns of looming second global crash

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/16/david-cameron-third-eurozone-recession-g20-warning

Edited March 6, 2015 by Asiantravel

[Cheesekraft]

diversify.

don't put all your eggs in one basket.

think ahead with a plan.

plan for worst-case disasters for each investment and make sure that this would not hurt too much, or you are risking too much in this area.

research for yourself before investing in anything.

make sure you are using low-fee investment methods.

don't invest in things that anyone else could swipe out from under you at a whim (like land in someone elses' name).

Edited March 6, 2015 by Cheesekraft

[suzannegoh]

If it was my money i would put half into gold (could store it in Singapore)the rest Bangkok bank

Finally a voice of reason.

[Hugh Jarse]

Word of warning if you choose to live in Thailand your UK pension will not be increased year by year as thailand and the UK do not have an agreement in place so unless the rules change what you get in your first year will be what you get every year after unless you choose to move back to Europe or a Country that has a pension linked agreement with the UK. In April 2016 everyone of pension age in the UK will get a weekly income estimated to be around the £150 per week my birthday falls short by a month so I will end up with just £116 per week Life's a Bitch !!!!

Yes, the freezing of UK pensions for Brits., living here is unjust (put mildly!) and there is a campaign going on that is screaming for change and fairness. PM me for info.

[robertthebruce]

Property for sure, in any Nice Location in the UK....

Rember the three golden words ''LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION''..

After 11 years, you will have made yourself a nice profit, from the price increase, and the rental factor..

All the best