What's the best way to sell a Bangkok house?

[Pistol Shrimp]

I have built a 3/4 bed house on a 79 sq wah plot in the Ladprao area of Bangkok and now wish to sell before leaving. We've lived in the house for two years. Has anyone any useful experience in selling residential property and, if so, could they provide any advice on how best to go about it?  It might help save me time and money...and prevent me making too many mistakes! All suggestions welcome.

[LennyW]

Price it at half what you think the value is. 

[blackcab]

I have plenty of experience. You have to price it to sell, otherwise it will sit there for years.

 

Advertise the property on websites such as ddproperty. Make sure the advert is in Thai and English. Plenty of photos and full details.

 

If it didn't sell after a month, reduce the price by 10 per cent. Keep on going - eventually it will sell.

[Pistol Shrimp]

Blackcap, thank you for the good advice. Sounds simple enough, but I'm sure it isn''t, especially as plot prices in my neck of the woods seem to be rising steadily...

[blackcab]

It all boils down to how fast do you need to sell it. The quicker you need money, the more you will have to discount the property to sell it.

 

The company I work for recently purchased some property for a 30 per cent discount, but we had to complete the sale in three working days.

[vukovar77]

14 hours ago, Pistol Shrimp said:

Blackcap, thank you for the good advice. Sounds simple enough, but I'm sure it isn''t, especially as plot prices in my neck of the woods seem to be rising steadily...

Everyone think same like you before try to sell it!!!

This is Thailand and Thais will not buy old house,only new in which nobody ever lived !

Foreigners can not buy land(on company name is very dangerous by Thai Law) and will not in this area,so you are in trouble if you want to sell it!!!

Better not to sell it if you are not desperate to sell!!!

[1FinickyOne]

15 hours ago, Pistol Shrimp said:

Blackcap, thank you for the good advice. Sounds simple enough, but I'm sure it isn''t, especially as plot prices in my neck of the woods seem to be rising steadily...

 

Hi Pistol - Everyone finds a way to overvalue their property - you built it to your concept of what a home should be... someone buying a 2nd hand property is expecting a depreciation... similar to buying a car... buildings depreciate here as land appreciates...

 

Land pries going up! The only problem is that you are not selling just a piece of land - you are selling land with a house on it. And that is a house of your choosing. Near Apples and oranges..

 

Sure, try and price it where you think or would like to sell it and then be prepared to reduce the price to where someone will buy it... near all sellers over value their property.. if you want to sell quickly, get realistic quickly. 

 

Good luck to you...

[Pistol Shrimp]

All the replies are appreciated. They are helpful, so thank you everyone. In response to some of your points - I'm in no hurry at all, and I do keep a close eye on what other properties of similar size are going for in our area. If I don't get the 'realistic' price sought, we'll just hang on to it. With the Skytrain extension and the new Central mall close by, it's bound to go up in value with the passage of time. I will certainly advertise in both English and Thai on DD Property as recommended. On the issue of ownership, the house is my Thai wife's name, and in the event of her death, would pass to our daughter (also Thai).

[BKKdreaming]

Can you get your 'investment" back ?   and plus you got 2 years of free 'rent"

 

anything over that is nice to have ,  

 

And also consider what  the exchange rate was when you built and now....

 

All this does not really matter if you are way out of the "interesting" price range

 

 

 

 

[akentryan]

Let me know if you find out. I have a house in Bang Sue that I  would like to part with.

[KittenKong]

17 hours ago, Pistol Shrimp said:

Blackcap, thank you for the good advice. Sounds simple enough, but I'm sure it isn''t, especially as plot prices in my neck of the woods seem to be rising steadily...

 

Fine. Just demolish your house and sell the plot, if you think it's worth so much.

 

I suspect that you are looking at asking prices, which tend to be plucked out of thin air in Thailand.

[Oldkhwaay]

When you are ready to sell put it on the market at a reasonable price. Just because a house nearby is priced at X$ means nothing. If it hasn't sold in 6 weeks you need to meet the market. It's only worth what the market will pay.

[dotpoom]

Thank you all for helping me make up my mind. I have been trying to sell my house for about 3 years now. I really love my house and really don't have any need to sell it, I would never have been able to afford a house like it back home. It was about 15 years old when I bought it. I redesigned it on the inside and outside  to make it my "retreat" away from the maddening crowd. It's about 25 kilometers from a big tourist town.

    All my life I'v had "itchy" feet and found it virtually impossible to resist the urge to move on to new horizons and that is my only reason for selling  My wife says...."Dotpoom, when we get old we will want to be here to sit and walk around outside when we are no longer very good on our feet" I was happy to hear her say that, not only because it made good sense, but also because she thinks I'm not old yet, 555.

    After reading these posts I decided that it would great to put all this selling business to bed and just enjoy the house for the time left to me and herself. I told her when I am "burned" and gone, I want you to place my ashes in the middle of my little garden with all my animal  (statues) friends standing and sitting around me, and you can sit on our seat and talk to me. Yes, she said, and when I go I will be beside you, ...(there was something very comforting about what she said). I told she can leave the house to a member of her family that she thinks might love the house as much as we did......Decision made.....now time to move on with different ideas.

                            Cheers....you guys.

Edited November 3, 2016 by dotpoom

[1FinickyOne]

If you want to keep this with some sort of reason, figure the price of a lot, the price for a new construction, and then subtract out 2 years of depreciation, say 10% of the cost of new, and then subtract out maybe 20-as much as 50% as selling 2nd hand here is not easy and people want their dream home, not yours and they hate the blue in the bedroom etc etc... so, they have legitimate concerns...

 

If you are looking at it as an investment that you do not mind holding, then probably the most important thing will be inflation rate, as materials will cost more and likely land too... then consider if your money would be better invested somewhere else, where you will not have a certain depreciation factored in... [its the climate, things get old quickly and need to be replaced] 

 

For me, an easily saleable or tradable commodity is better than one that might get more difficult to sell every year... but that is a business outlook, if it is your baby, and you planned and sweated over all the details, it will feel more difficult for you to part with as opposed to how it might look unemotionally, as an investment... 

[me4175]

I definitely agree with others saying that Thais prefer to buy first hand houses. So the problem is: as long as there are comparable new houses which go for roughly as much as you want to sell yours (and that's the case basically everywhere here) you'll have a tough time, whatever you did to your property. So the more it looks like NEW, the better chance you have to sell it.

Just look through the wrecks of 2nd hand houses on ddproperty, many are badly run down and most are horribly decorated. No way these are going to sell. If yours really stands out, you are half there already.

In my opinion, as long as yours doesn't look like a Thai's dream home from the inside, you'll have the best chances to sell it, for a good price, when potential buyers can have a look at it in a renovated, "empty" condition. To accomplish that, you may take a temporary rental elsewhere, put your excess stuff in storage and move out. Then renovate it a bit to make it look like NEW, with any fixtures (bathroom, kitchen) in good condition. Getting a broker may cost you but will help to speed things up.

That may sound tough to to, but if you're interested in getting the best possible price, this is the way to go.

 

[Pistol Shrimp]

Good points, many thanks, everyone. It does look new. Might replace a couple of bathroom fittings I don't like and will certainly sort out the garden and repaint the garden walls. Locals call it the 'farang house' and walk by just to look at it. Had some queries from potential buyers even before putting it on the market. Had one broker visit a year ago who suggested 8-9 ml. We'll see.  

[elgordo38]

When you advertise also list an "Open House" date. Thais are inquisitive by nature and will come to see your digs. 

[Pistol Shrimp]

Good suggestion, elgordo. I've noticed that - the curiosity. One young feller with a very rich dad rang the bell and came in and couldn't get over the place, kept saying how marvellous it was - so I inflated the price just for him - and haven't seen him again lol! 

[elgordo38]

1 minute ago, Pistol Shrimp said:

Good suggestion, elgordo. I've noticed that - the curiosity. One young feller with a very rich dad rang the bell and came in and couldn't get over the place, kept saying how marvellous it was - so I inflated the price just for him - and haven't seen him again lol! 

Yes they are price sensitive. Buy a cheap second hand car and park it out front and tell him thats a promotional gift if he buys in the next hour. Always have a copy of a offer of purchase handy. Be ready to strike when the iron is hot. 

[Pistol Shrimp]

Excellent tip, thank you!

[wordchild]

7 hours ago, dotpoom said:

Thank you all for helping me make up my mind. I have been trying to sell my house for about 3 years now. I really love my house and really don't have any need to sell it, I would never have been able to afford a house like it back home. It was about 15 years old when I bought it. I redesigned it on the inside and outside  to make it my "retreat" away from the maddening crowd. It's about 25 kilometers from a big tourist town.

    All my life I'v had "itchy" feet and found it virtually impossible to resist the urge to move on to new horizons and that is my only reason for selling  My wife says...."Dotpoom, when we get old we will want to be here to sit and walk around outside when we are no longer very good on our feet" I was happy to hear her say that, not only because it made good sense, but also because she thinks I'm not old yet, 555.

    After reading these posts I decided that it would great to put all this selling business to bed and just enjoy the house for the time left to me and herself. I told her when I am "burned" and gone, I want you to place my ashes in the middle of my little garden with all my animal  (statues) friends standing and sitting around me, and you can sit on our seat and talk to me. Yes, she said, and when I go I will be beside you, ...(there was something very comforting about what she said). I told she can leave the house to a member of her family that she thinks might love the house as much as we did......Decision made.....now time to move on with different ideas.

                            Cheers....you guys.

A beautiful post, thank you

[KhaoNiaw]

Blackcab's advice is good. Not only DDProperty, go through some of the more popular Thai sites where listing is free and get someone to help you do the details in Thai if you need to.

 

We sold 2 houses pretty quickly, one townhouse, one 3-bedroom detached house, from just listing on websites. Although people say Thais only want brand new houses, we got quite a lot of inquiries, a few people coming to look round and the townhouse went within a couple of weeks and the other house about 2-3 months.

[robertthebruce]

 

 

Dont mention the GHOST.....

[blackcab]

7 hours ago, me4175 said:

I definitely agree with others saying that Thais prefer to buy first hand houses.

 

A large part of that is because developer's properties generally have an easy entry finance scheme all set up.

 

To buy second hand means a bigger deposit and a more stringent application process.

[Pistol Shrimp]

This is useful stuff and I thank everyone for their time and trouble and obviously some of you have been kind enough to share your considerable expertise. Elgordo you mentioned, among other useful ideas, having an 'offer of purchase' form available. Forgive my ignorance/stupidity, but is this a standard form one can get hold of, or do we draw it up ourselves (in Thai and English)? Your other ideas - second hand car, open days etc. all excellent. 

Many thanks and have a great weekend.

[chrisandsu]

On 11/2/2016 at 6:44 PM, vukovar77 said:

Everyone think same like you before try to sell it!!!

This is Thailand and Thais will not buy old house,only new in which nobody ever lived !

Foreigners can not buy land(on company name is very dangerous by Thai Law) and will not in this area,so you are in trouble if you want to sell it!!!

Better not to sell it if you are not desperate to sell!!!

Not true . I sold my house to a Thai . Had no problems at all ! If it's in a good location and a well looked after moo ban / house it will sell if it's priced right . Butttt if they can get a brand new built house very close to you for the same price they will go with new every day of the week (and so they should) . Price right and you will be fine. 

[chrisandsu]

On 11/2/2016 at 10:30 PM, me4175 said:

I definitely agree with others saying that Thais prefer to buy first hand houses. So the problem is: as long as there are comparable new houses which go for roughly as much as you want to sell yours (and that's the case basically everywhere here) you'll have a tough time, whatever you did to your property. So the more it looks like NEW, the better chance you have to sell it.

Just look through the wrecks of 2nd hand houses on ddproperty, many are badly run down and most are horribly decorated. No way these are going to sell. If yours really stands out, you are half there already.

In my opinion, as long as yours doesn't look like a Thai's dream home from the inside, you'll have the best chances to sell it, for a good price, when potential buyers can have a look at it in a renovated, "empty" condition. To accomplish that, you may take a temporary rental elsewhere, put your excess stuff in storage and move out. Then renovate it a bit to make it look like NEW, with any fixtures (bathroom, kitchen) in good condition. Getting a broker may cost you but will help to speed things up.

That may sound tough to to, but if you're interested in getting the best possible price, this is the way to go.

 

 

I have often though about doing this as a business in thailand . Sometimes im

amazed at how poorly decorated the houses are , terrible light fittings , paint colours , tiles ..... the list is endless but pretty easy to fix . Nice clean neautral colours , no horrible over sized furniture ! Basically keep it minimalists and let the buyer imagine themselves living there ! 

[blackcab]

55 minutes ago, chrisandsu said:

I have often though about doing this as a business in thailand 

 

Give it a try and let us know how you get on. Start a new thread and include lots of pictures. It would be a good read.