Renting Instead of Buying in Chiang Mai?

[puukao]

I usually wait until a nice house is built and then open up 100 karaoke bars once I think the owner paid for some nice fixes.....then i hire 10,000 roosters....

 

in 3-6 months they are begging to leave with massive amounts of money lost.  then i buy for big discount...

 

or renters...they are the best... me and my friends have the best noise scam ever on them!!!!  oh, you have money and think you can live in peace??? NO!!!!!

 

seriously, because rent is so cheap I can deal with a lot of noise.  and this is a place where you are out soo much.  but buying anything seems less and less likely....even throwing a few million for a condo might cause great stress of just being soo stupid when things finally do fall apart and then neighbor has 1 zillion ants for pets

 

[LivinLOS]

1 hour ago, puukao said:

seriously, because rent is so cheap I can deal with a lot of noise.  and this is a place where you are out soo much.  but buying anything seems less and less likely....even throwing a few million for a condo might cause great stress of just being soo stupid when things finally do fall apart and then neighbor has 1 zillion ants for pets

 

 

Well theres things I cant deal with, and will suffer the pain of moving again over, but I admit to being sick of moving and do desire a decent long term base (behind high walls on a large plot, insulated from as much as I can) but I do agree. Simple works here, complex or high expectations are often the cause of problems, what did Buddha say, desire is the root cause of suffering ?? 

 

Over time I keep lowering my expectations, simply as its easier to than the cost of fixing. At one time my villa rent alone was 80k and with compulsory gardeners, pool folks, and an electric bill it was easy 100k a month. My first chiang mai house was 30k a month but a great home 4 bed, 18m x 6m pool, hot tub jacussi, an entertaining sala with seating for 20 and a full high end second kitchen in it, properly designed gardens.. I wouldnt have left that one if the owner would have just maintained it even in the most basic of ways.. Now I am in a perfectly fine 2 bed + large office, 3/4 rai plot, car ports for many vehicles and motorbike shed.. with a pool, for 11k a month !! and that includes pool cleaning and chemicals (that was 2k a month). The smaller I go, the less problems I am having (maybe theres a good lesson there) and the price is beyond cheap, its basically my electric bill on Phuket. I did work hard to find it and am lucky to have done so I admit. 

 

As I am spending at least my summers in the west currently it suits to downsize, but against all advice, I do often fall into the 'build the place you want' pattern of thought, were I can have my dogs with rais of space, a workshop for project cars and dirtbikes, etc etc.. So it may end up a do as I say not as I do. 

[lkn]

2 hours ago, LivinLOS said:

I have seen an initial 9 million home asking price end up a hair over 2 million sold. My last home went from 12.5 mil to 7 when I offered 5

 

But do we know what the previous price was?

 

There are definitely some crazy listings out there, but it does not necessarily mean that the seller paid this. I have come across resellers where I knew the original list price, and the reseller wanted a 25-50% profit just for having bought the condo off-plan.

 

Overall though I agree with your points and I am a condo owner (and love it!). I think I would say, do not buy in Thailand before you feel you know the market and can articulate why you prefer to buy instead of renting.

 

I probably looked at condos for 1-2 years before I finally found something that checked all the boxes and didn’t feel like a rip-off.

[LivinLOS]

48 minutes ago, lkn said:

 

But do we know what the previous price was?

 

I dont understand.. Both homes were built by the owners.. Ones still empty and decaying and I know the base house, land cost from the mooban and the additions he made cost enormously, far in excess of what the market would pay for it. The swimming pool alone was close to 2 mil baht. Eg I know what it could be built for, both times they were asking for less than build cost alone let alone land plus build. But in fairness the build was decaying, so yes, land value. 

 

I will readily admit to knowing very little about condos. Not to be snarky but I would leave Thailand long before living in one. That kind of density doesnt suit me. 

 

Quote

I think I would say, do not buy in Thailand before you feel you know the market and can articulate why you prefer to buy instead of renting.

 

Agree fully.. I know people happy they purchased, but I also know many more whose purchase was the defining bad thing that happened to them on thier Thai adventure. 

Edited January 12, 2017 by LivinLOS

[lkn]

1 hour ago, LivinLOS said:

I dont understand.. Both homes were built by the owners.. […]

 

OK, I thought you mentioned it as an example of “easy to buy, hard to sell”, and thus someone buying a house in the area of 9 million but later having to sell it for only 2 million.

 

Definitely a lot of houses being built in the middle of nowhere with practically no demand, so if the owner spends a fortune on quality materials, well, he is likely to lose money. Hopefully he does so to live there himself.

 

I have spent a fortunate myself on improvements, but I see that as an investment in my own happiness, as I sincerely doubt I can add 100% of it to the price, should I ever want to sell this place.

 

[lkn]

1 hour ago, LivinLOS said:

I will readily admit to knowing very little about condos. Not to be snarky but I would leave Thailand long before living in one. That kind of density doesnt suit me. 

 

I have close to 200 sq. m. over two storeys with windows to 3 sides, big balcony and staircase leading up to rooftop terrace. Many, but not all condos are 30 sq. m. shoeboxes :)

 

[LivinLOS]

17 minutes ago, lkn said:

 

I have close to 200 sq. m. over two storeys with windows to 3 sides, big balcony and staircase leading up to rooftop terrace. Many, but not all condos are 30 sq. m. shoeboxes :)

 

 

Nice.. But I mean the urban density.. The boxes in the sky thing makes me feel disconnected somehow. 

 

I did have a mate in bangkok whose place had a huge balcony the length of the condo, lots of outdoor seating and plants.. That went a long way to helping. 

[cgjtt]

We are thinking of putting our house in Chiang Mai on the market and are looking to get a evaluation by someone dependable. Any suggestions or recommendations ??

[MadMac]

The spread between renting and buying is in the moment crazy in CM. meaning you pay a fraction of rent on what you would have to invest to buy. Something like a whole house to rent for 20k/month whereas they want to sell it for 10m. It's not realistic, nobody would buy it, but these are prices being asked. 1 Rai of land goes for 3mTHB alone which is completely crazy. You figure.

 

[KhonKaenKowboy]

Some group paid 75,000,000,000 for 43 rai in Hong Kong last week.  10 million for a 20K rental...must be in lovely San Sai or some other hard to get to place outside of town.  2.4% gross...it happens, but that is still more than most savings accounts pay.  3 or 4% is common in areas with old houses that will likely be torn down...but on a newer house...someone really dropped the ball.

[lkn]

4 hours ago, MadMac said:

The spread between renting and buying is in the moment crazy in CM

The spread between renting and renting is crazy, but if you look closer at what you get for your money, you might see why something is 10-20 times more expensive than the cheapest option.

 

Something very similar is likely the case for buying and renting.

[MadMac]

Your point is what?

[luther]

When we lived in Pattaya the price-to-rent ratio for our house 3,500 to 1. The 20-rai property was listed in the NYTimes for 18 million USD. We paid 15,000 baht rent for over a decade.

 

Of course that's an absurd example, but I know people who are paying 10,000 baht a month rent for a house that the owners are sort of trying to sell for 6 million baht. So 50 to 1, higher than San Francisco.