Phuket's Condo Market Showing Recovery After 2-Year Decline

[webfact]

Phuket's Condo Market Showing Recovery After 2-Year Decline
BY JACOB MASLOW

PHUKET: -- Phuket’s condo market is recovering, according to Plus Property. Sales for units that are priced at or around Bt100,000 have had significant growth in the past year. Unit prices have risen by 5% to Bt89,548 a square meter.

Luxury villas with an asking price of Bt35 million or higher also recovered. Extremely wealthy foreigners and investors have been coming to the country in recent months. A major reason for the incline in condominium prices is attributed to government action taken to increase tourism and transportation in the country. A stimulus package is also provided to help the property market position itself for growth.

Developers have a higher absorption rate of 6.47 condos, versus 5.09 units on average.

Full story: http://ethailand.com/business-news/phukets-condo-market-showing-recovery-after-2-year-decline/401/

-- eThailand 2015-11-24

[schlog]

Maybe i should visit a doctor. But i never saw so many empty and for sale shoe boxes and houses on Phuket before.

Hub of shoe boxes oversupply on Phuket.

[DrDave]

Where does one find a condominium unit "at or around Bt100,000"?

Meanwhile, we're seeing fire sale notices here on TVF with lists of deeply discounted units.

[exbikey]

Nice sales pitch by Plus Property.

Travelling around I see many developments being 'thrown up' (as apposed to being properly constructed) but very few appear to be taken; for example, if you look at the numerous 'D-Condo' developments scattered around the island, the greater percentage of the units appear to be empty. And don't get me going on about those bl**dy shophouse developments, that old folk song from the USA comes to mind "little boxes made of tricky tacky and they all look the same"

From a personal prospective I think the whole property market could do with a total rethink in design, pricing (value for money), the impact on the locality and most important how the existing utilities can cope with any further development.

Another pet grievance is the current trend for condo developers to emphasis their particular development is 'E.I.A. Approved'...wow. It's a given that a condominium has to have an E.I.A approval before they can start building. Ooops, I forgot about the 'Ace Condo' in Patong.

That's enough for now, I'm going have a coffee and relax.

Edited November 24, 2015 by exbikey

[jalansanitwong]

35 million baht for a villa in Phuket ? It makes you wonder where these deuche bags got their money from.

Most properties here are built with cheap Burmese labour and shoddy building materials imported from Cambodia and China.

The legality of the land is highly questionable and alot of title deeds are currently being scrutinised by the government.

Forget it. You can buy a really nice property on the gold coast in Australia for half that and its got excellent rental prospects.

Whats Phuket got that beach resorts in OZ dont have?.......grubby gogo girls.

Thailand is the best country in the world to rent........so rent! Invest your money in stable western countries.

Never buy expensive property in a 3rd world country.

[TheCruncher]

35 million baht for a villa in Phuket ? It makes you wonder where these deuche bags got their money from.

Most properties here are built with cheap Burmese labour and shoddy building materials imported from Cambodia and China.

The legality of the land is highly questionable and alot of title deeds are currently being scrutinised by the government.

Forget it. You can buy a really nice property on the gold coast in Australia for half that and its got excellent rental prospects.

Whats Phuket got that beach resorts in OZ dont have?.......grubby gogo girls.

Thailand is the best country in the world to rent........so rent! Invest your money in stable western countries.

Never buy expensive property in a 3rd world country.

You can buy a luxury villa on Australia's gold coast for 17.5 Million Baht?

Please sign me up.

[jalansanitwong]

The word 'villa' is blown out of proportion. A villa is basically just a dwelling near the beach so they call it a luxury villa. lol

Queensland's got 2 thousand miles of superb coast line much of which is surf. Population...about 4 million. The place is empty. Qld is about the same size sqm as Thailand.

There are loads of properties down there and its far cheaper than Sydney and Melbourne... Take your pick.

[Benmart]

Speculation, wishfull thinking, fibbing, lies, halucinations, etc. Take your pick.

[Old Croc]

Where does one find a condominium unit "at or around Bt100,000"?

Meanwhile, we're seeing fire sale notices here on TVF with lists of deeply discounted units.

At "Bt89,548 a square meter" they're not very big.

[Pinot]

Total nonsense. The real estate market in Phuket is dead. The Russian ruble falling off the table was the death knell. This is a realtor trying to sell some of the enormous inventory there is of homes in Phuket. Unfortunatly, some poor naive sucker is going to think this is true and actually buy something here.

I advocate that no one buy property in Thailand and especially in Phuket. It's a financially risky thing to do. Prices always go down and you never own the property. Condos and homes can turn into nightmares over night.

The thing that drives me crazy is the construction on Phuket hasn't slowed down a lick. The environmental impact on the island has been devastating. In any western country, the completely overwhelmed water, sewage and power system would result in a building moratorium. Not here! Everyday more inventory becomes available while the nonstop construction tears up what's left of Phukets environment.

Don't buy. Rent. A big middle finger salute to all the Phuket developers. You deserve to go broke.

[exbikey]

A few posts here contradicting what the good people of Plus Property are saying about the current state of the Phuket property market. Maybe Plus Property, or any other of the islands realtors, could provide some numbers proving us skeptics wrong. Personally I would really like to see, or hear, some genuine good news about my adopted home

[madmitch]

You only have to read the poorly written first paragraph to make a decision that the whole article is probably crap. And others' experiences seem to corroborate this.

[steelepulse]

One thing about all these box condos is that many Thais buy/bought up a number of them at a time, figuring they can rent them out and get a better return than keeping their money in the bank. However they didn't plan on everyone and their brother doing the same thing thus turning the market into a saturated one with not enough tenants to rent the places out.

Edit to add: the 100,000 figure is the price per sqm.

Edited November 25, 2015 by steelepulse

[DrDave]

The entire article is full of useless numbers with no real context.

How many 35+ million baht properties were on the market, and how many were sold?

The 89,548 baht/m2 figure refers to what condos? A select few, an average of all sales on the island? I have seen very few (if any) condos priced anywhere near this. The 100,000 baht/m2 (they left out the unit of measure in both the main article and the TV tagline) is equally laughable. Have any of us really seen a condo in Phuket really worth 100K/m2? Maybe something located on an absolute beachfront, or with true 4 or 5 star amenities but surely not the vast majority of projects being built by unskilled Burmese 400 baht/day labor 1-10km away from a beach. I've seen quite a few nice, higher quality re-sales advertised priced in the 40-50K/m2 range, however.

I especially like the mention of the Government's stimulus package. They forgot to mention, however, that it applies only to properties priced under 3 million baht, which according to the article's own price/m2 figures, would exclude all units except the tiniest shoeboxes.

And finally, it looks like the investors that scooped up units in hopes of having profitable rentals will be learning the same harsh lesson that the buyers of newer guesthouses in Patong have learned this past year. The rental rates will be beaten down to the point where they'll be losing money on their investment.

[Old Croc]

I have a friend who bought 2 investment condos in a new large complex on the Rawai beach front.

Can't rent them, can't sell them. He's bleeding.

[NamKangMan]

I have a friend who bought 2 investment condos in a new large complex on the Rawai beach front.

Can't rent them, can't sell them. He's bleeding.

And what did he expect????????

[NamKangMan]

One thing about all these box condos is that many Thais buy/bought up a number of them at a time, figuring they can rent them out and get a better return than keeping their money in the bank. However they didn't plan on everyone and their brother doing the same thing thus turning the market into a saturated one with not enough tenants to rent the places out.

Edit to add: the 100,000 figure is the price per sqm.

"One thing about all these box condos is that many Thais buy/bought up a number of them at a time" - I hope the Thai's bought 51% of them.