Thank you.
Never even considered this option before but for complex personal reasons, it might possibly be the ticket for me instead of the usual annual extensions.  Even just avoiding the annual hassle is worth something ... 

A downside I can think of though is that if you use it for 5 years (or 5 minutes) coming from retirement extensions you lose any chance of GRANDFATHERING if you ever want to do retirement extensions again, and there is good chance within 5 years the rules will change on that. 

Edited February 19, 20179 yr by Jingthing

For sure RENT a house.... DO NOT BUY ONE!!!!!!  Like other posters have said no one wants to buy an old house... Thais like 'brand spanking new' everything.

 

No that the Pound has dropped so low... and with the political stuff here... Less Brits are coming to buy... 

 

PS... I can sell you my lovely modern style house for a good price....lol.

2 hours ago, Jeremy50 said:

Nobody has mentioned the screamingly obvious which is the devaluation of the Pound against the Baht by 20%. Now is not the time to move savings to Thailand. Wait!  Another thing, if you are buying property in Pattaya, you'll be paying foreigner prices, for a low quality build which will depreciated in  value year on year. The opposite of the UK, where property is nearly always a good investment. Nobody buys old places here. The potential for you guys to lose a fortune is huge.

Just a couple of things.  Not all condos have a foreign and Thai price. Some are sold for the same price but the foreigner may have different payment terms, such as putting more money down.   Buying in foreign name, even if you pay more, is often worth it for resale.  Second, not all condos lose money and not all condos are hard to sell.  I've bought and sold 13 condos in 8 different projects in the last 6 years and the 14th goes to closing this coming week.   In most cases, I think it would be pretty hard to 'lose a fortune' if you buy wisely.  Actually, even if you don't buy wisely I doubt many would lose a 'fortune' at the 3MB price point or less, especially if you use the condo for a number of years or rent it out.  I like to use View Talay 2 as an example, although I have never owned there.  Friends of mine bought a condo there three or four years ago.  I think they paid around 1.5MB, give or take.   Today the condo is probably at least still worth 1.5MB and I doubt it will lose much value in the years to come because it is in a great location and it is being maintained well.  Might even increase some in value.   But, suppose, horrors!, the condo loses value and my friends can only sell for 1MB?  Well, they've lost 500,000 Baht or a little over $14,000 USA dollars depending on the exchange rate.  They've taken a hit but maybe haven't lost a 'fortune'.  And, they've saved on rent all the years they have been in the condo so they might break even depending on how long they are there.  Yes, they could have invested the money rather than bought a condo and I will be the first to recommend renting if you are only here short-time.  But, for long -term residents, many of us like to own our own place and have our own things.