Condominium in Udon

[plien]

Are there any condominium buildings in Udon? If not, how come? If one think about how many farang that chose this type of living in Bkk and Pattaya its hard to understand why its not popular here at all. I for sure would seriously consider this type of home here. Input welcome

[seymourbutts]

Well my two penneth worth..
In pattaya codo's are bought by single men who use them really as shagging pads!! And I suppose the same in BKk.. now theres nothing wrong with that in Pattaya and Bangkok, but it would encourage the wrong type of farang here in Udon.... Or in other words condo's are really for single men and flats and houses are for copuples usually, Going on from that if we had a condo complex it would encourage single men to set up shagging pads here in Udon, maybe they are better off in pattaya and Bkk.. i for one dont think udon is another Pattaya and neither should we encourage the sex tourists to move here, theyre much better off in Pattaya and Bkk!!
This is a familly orientated town i would suggest and condo's are not for famillies.....

Just my opinion.

[pompui]

Do not want to make the Thai girls angry up here with farang spending money and having the condo in their name and not in her name.It is just not cricket

[beer monkey]

They might also spoil the architecture of the beautiful town....high rises popping up willy nilly all over the place full of farangs escaping from patters for a month or two....nahhh it won't work....plus no condos no jumpers.

[aznyron]

there is a condo building here i was inside it not some thing I liked but if you spent some money on the room it could be a nice pace to kick back with out the problems but rents are so cheap here it not in one best interest to buy I did in the wife's village for her but I would never buy real estate in thailand

[laphanphon]

agree, rents are so cheap, why take the risk to invest in buying an apartment, especially since local business people don't have the best reputation for maintaining properties. i would love to be able to buy something 'almost' in my name, but it would surely be overpriced, as no thai would bother buying, when that could pay the same for a house, or be practical and just rent also.

[nifty]

land cheap, 49/51% ownership do you think many thais would buy a condo,maybe for a knocking pad for there gik maybe

[parrot]

Le Celini calls itself a condo development, but thus far, it's just single family homes. I believe they plan on a condo unit in the future. Located at H12 on udonmap. Single family homes start at 10 mil.......plus factor in several thousand per month for pool/maintenance fees.

[laphanphon]

if i had 10 mill to spend on housing, i surely would be living in thalland

[BobHelm]

I know that they are well built houses in a nice part of town...
But I am well happy with my rented 3 bed bungalow in Romien. It has enough space for me & TG & near enough to town, but quiet as well...
Oh, and the purchase price of a nice home in Le Celini is 1,538 months worth of rent (or 128 years). Even at my most optimistic I don't think I will manage that...

[parrot]

"1,538 months worth of rent (or 128 years)"
That's a lot of food for thought!!

[DRILLER]

i havent been to udon thani but after living in the p.i. & decided to move on, i have somehow lowered the cross hairs on udon thani....can you quote the rent youre paying on that place, as i am curious as to why anyone would bother investing in residential property with apparently extremely low rates of yield....

I know that they are well built houses in a nice part of town...
But I am well happy with my rented 3 bed bungalow in Romien. It has enough space for me & TG & near enough to town, but quiet as well...
Oh, and the purchase price of a nice home in Le Celini is 1,538 months worth of rent (or 128 years). Even at my most optimistic I don't think I will manage that...

[BobHelm]

No, where I am living the properties sell for between 1.3 Million & probably 2 Million. The properties are nearly all the same basic concept - 3 bedroom bungalows. But they are pretty individual. So some have a separate Falang style kitchen, some will not, some will have 'office space", some will have a shop front, some took on a "double plot" & so have a large garden. You see the price difference depends on the current "quality" of the home (I guess they were built 10ish years ago??) & what you are getting for your money.
Rental payments will vary as well. Anything from about 5K (or maybe a little lower with zero furniture & not a very good state of repair) to, I have seen people ask, 12K - although I think that is a very optimistic ask for a long term rent.
The place I am in.....I am paying 5,500 a month. My landlady currently has the place up for sale and is asking 1,600,000. Personally I think she is being VERY optimistic. Something about 1.3 would be a good price (for the buyer) 1.6 is a good price for the seller It as been on the market for well over 6 weeks now (I believe it was up 'word of mouth before that) so far we have not had 1 viewer.
At 1.4M it would take nearly 255 months (or 21 years) to re-coop the money in rental - although you would have the asset, of course...

[plien]

No, where I am living the properties sell for between 1.3 Million & probably 2 Million. The properties are nearly all the same basic concept - 3 bedroom bungalows. But they are pretty individual. So some have a separate Falang style kitchen, some will not, some will have 'office space", some will have a shop front, some took on a "double plot" & so have a large garden. You see the price difference depends on the current "quality" of the home (I guess they were built 10ish years ago??) & what you are getting for your money.
Rental payments will vary as well. Anything from about 5K (or maybe a little lower with zero furniture & not a very good state of repair) to, I have seen people ask, 12K - although I think that is a very optimistic ask for a long term rent.
The place I am in.....I am paying 5,500 a month. My landlady currently has the place up for sale and is asking 1,600,000. Personally I think she is being VERY optimistic. Something about 1.3 would be a good price (for the buyer) 1.6 is a good price for the seller It as been on the market for well over 6 weeks now (I believe it was up 'word of mouth before that) so far we have not had 1 viewer.
At 1.4M it would take nearly 255 months (or 21 years) to re-coop the money in rental - although you would have the asset, of course...

Interesting reasoning here Bob. Having been in the real estate business I calculate rents and price of a house the same way. Back in farangland a rough way of measuring price comes to about 10 - 12 times yearly rent. Here I often come across the valuation being 20 - 25 times yearly rent when looking at asking price for a house. I must add that my experience come mostly from within city areas. Here there might be some factors Im not aware of but your figures speak for themselves. Renting makes good value.
Plien

[BobHelm]

I think if maybe there was a zero (or very little) Falang factor in Udon/Thailand then your falangland price measurement would probably work here as well plien. 550,000 to 600,000 would be a reasonable "Thai" price for the place I am in, given building material & construction costs and the original value of land if not actually used for building. We Falangs bear a great deal of responsibility in pushing up the cost of housing I fear!!!

[plien]

Took the liberty of applying these maths to a Le Celini 10 million Bt house. With a 20 year factor the rent is 41000 B per month. Plien

[laphanphon]

Here there might be some factors Im not aware of but your figures speak for themselves. Renting makes good value.

factors....................like inferior construction, materials, labor.................agree with your thinking, as i also did real estate back in farang land, sold and a slum lord. here the prices for buying, unless planning on living there for 20-30 years is a bit much. i can't see the investment value of it. though building your own can save 50-65 percent, depending who you deal with and your experience/expertise in getting materials and labor, and the market at time of buying/selling.

good luck.

We Falangs bear a great deal of responsibility in pushing up the cost of housing I fear

not so sure about that, as there are far more uppity locals driving around in vehicles we certainly can't afford, and buying a lot of houses. think we are just a small part of the equation.

[douglas]

Hi,
Came to Udon Dec 2005. Looked at rental for a three bed two bathroom house, they wanted 10000B a month for same, new, unfurnished. Could not live with wife and 2 kids in a condo. Decided to buy, Same house cost me 980,000B then, this included land and fees for buying, best thing i have ever done. Put land in TG name and house in mine, yes you can do this, and got a 30 year lease extendable for another 30 years on land I should be so lucky, as i am 69 now but belt and braces. If i rented the place i would of paid the price of the house in just over eight years. This is assuming the rent does not rise, if you are lucky Ha Ha. I think the rent will about double, or more, in the next ten years and if you are on a fixed pension this could hurt. Also i could do what i want with the property. The only extra i pay is 100B a month for street lighting and security and binmen
The prices for the same size bare house with land on same estate now is over 1.7MB. I was offered more than that for mine but i would not sell, to happy here. So in less than 4 years my house has doubled in price. Even if you account the low interest rates you get on your money in U.K. I think i got the best deal.
If you intend staying here like me, i'm retired, i would certainly buy. IMHO.
On the same estate a five bed four bathroom two story house is for sale, they are asking 6MB, house was bought with extra land for just under 4MB new 2 years ago. Guy had trouble with his L.B. but i think he is asking to much as you can buy a new house to your requirements of that size for less, not as much land though. The estate is also inside the ring road.
Cheers Doug.

[parrot]

'We Falangs bear a great deal of responsibility in pushing up the cost of housing I fear!!!"

For a customized house, I'd agree that a falang way of having it built might be more expensive than the common upper-middle-class thai. What seems to push up the cost of housing here more than construction costs is the cost of land. Land in the Celini area is outrageously expensive!

With little to no enforceable building codes, it'd be easy to take any 2 million baht home and build a look-a-like clone for 1.4 or so, even less, million baht. On the outside, all'd be the same. But the gauge of the rebar, the thickness of the concrete, the quality of the electrical work, etc etc would not be the same. It seems to be a common thread through udonmap/thaivisa of falangs who come here and are convinced they can build a home in the boonies for a song. They can. The mother-in-law gives the daughter a piece of land next to the mother. The father-in-law hires a bunch of relatives/neighbors to do the construction. The paint is watered thin. The cement is dryed properly. The electrical system isn't grounded.

The big difference between owning (okay, so the wife owns it) and renting is: You don't like a wall? You can take it down. Expand, destroy, repaint, fix it up.....at your discretion.

Maybe it's like cooking at home and eating out everyday. Both fill you up and for some people, it works just fine. But for others, cooking at home works best, not because it's cheaper/more convenient, but because you get to cook it the way you like it.

[rickfarang]

Le Celini -if you want to buy substandard construction at a premium price, go for it. I know that of which I speak (write).