Thai home prices. Up or down in 2011?

[DesertStorm]

Thai home prices. Up or down in 2011?

[douglas]

Hi,
Bought my house about 6 years ago. Just inside the ring road. To date the cost of the same type of house, on the same estate has gone up every year since. A house like mine, this year, is priced at double what I paid. The price of land has more than doubled. So house prices are unlikely to drop next year. IMO. More likely to go up. There is a lot of building going on now, and houses are selling well. A sellers market.

[gulfman]

Interesting question: as a falang bringing money into Thailand the prices are always on the ‘up’. With the dollar and the pound depreciating so much in the last three to four years the house prices have risen (relatively) by 30-40%. A few weeks ago I was in Florida and some of the bank repossessed houses there are selling for Udon ( dollar) prices.

[nkstan]

There is nothing in sight to to cause deflation in Thailand!!!Therefore the price of homes will continue to rise as costs increase.Though homes for resale might carry higher pricetags,it doesn't mean they will sell as the market is pretty well confined to falangs,Thais prefer new homes and usually only buy second hand homes when they are marked below market and used as rentals.

Falangs have a double whammy with the continuing demise of their currency as the baht will contine to strengthen !

[Prenders88]

We bought two years ago for 1.8 million, one is up for sale on our moobaan for 2.8 million.

[Texpat]

Because the price to build a new house -- or the price of a newly-built house is continually increasing -- doesn't mean the price of an existing house is, likewise, increasing.

Houses in Thailand generally depreciate. The land almost always holds its value.

[old-timer]

Houses in Thailand generally depreciate. The land almost always holds its value.

He's right, I paid 20,000 baht for a shop inside the ring road, yes twenty thousand baht. The land cost a bloody fortune though.When I bought the land I told the sellers to take their building with them. They relented and sold it to me for 20k.

OT...........

[hangsaboot]

We bought two years ago for 1.8 million, one is up for sale on our moobaan for 2.8 million.

maybe just the same as the many farang bars / restaurants , 4 sale in udon.
long time up, FOR SALE at inflated prices . live in hope maybe one day.

[UdonExpat]

Let's see, more people, more money, more cheap credit, more jobs, increasing GDP, but no more land. Oh, Oh, guess what?

Land is valuable in good locations. Houses are cheap, the way they're built.

Condos are probably in oversupply, and risky as an investment to turn over, but are good to hold as rentals.

But, better than land may be stock in real estate development companies.

No bubble yet as Thai builders jump into housing boom

September 06, 2010BANGKOK, Sept 6 — From its business district to leafy suburbs, new condominiums are sprouting almost daily across Bangkok, but developers and investors alike seem little concerned about a property bubble developing.
The country’s real-estate stocks have been on the boil with the index of property stocks up 28 per cent in the last three months and many listed companies have raised profit forecasts, confident of capitalising on what they say is insatiable local demand.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/busi ... sing-boom/

[DermotC]

My two cents worth, Ive been watching the websites for teh Udon real Estate companies for a year or so now. In order to sell a property, prices are being reduced and even then there are still properties for sale now cheaper than they were a year ago that still cant be sold.

Maybe BKK is different but on what ive seen id say decreasing.

[Texpat]

Many farangs have trouble with the thought that their house will never be more valuable than the day it was finished being built. Just like a car. It's all downhill.

It's a foreign concept to many.

[DermotC]

I agree texpat, thinking it doesnt make it so!

[Tafia]

Many farangs have trouble with the thought that their house will never be more valuable than the day it was finished being built. Just like a car. It's all downhill.

It's a foreign concept to many.

I agree also, but why would they want to think about it, Im 57 my wife is 42.
Whatever I paid for the house it is unlikely that I would reap any reward in the future other than living in it until they carry me out feet first. I certainly didn't buy it with profit in mind.

[ajsp9]

Yes Taff, what you are doing is not just buying 'a house', you are buying a home which means in some ways it has a greater 'value' to you. Whichever way you look at it what you pay for your house is 100% fine as it serves to do no more than provide a decent roof over your head for the next 20yrs + of your life, so its monetry value is of no concern to you.

Thats a great attitude to have and situatin to be in.

[parrot]

I have nothing to base this on except feelings:
If a western brain (us) designs and builds a home designed on western ideas, a thai (eastern fengshui/buddhist wired brain) is unlikely to buy it, especially if it's high priced. I'd guess they'd build their own instead according to their needs (including having their bedrooms layed out in accordance with Buddhist and fengshui thinking.
If that's true (and I have no reason to believe it really is), you'd be more likely to sell your home to a Thai if you bought your home in a place like First Home, for example, where the homes are more of a fusion between east and west.
One thing Thais and Chinese don't like is bad juju. They'll avoid it like the plague. A western brain isn't normally configured to see/understand things like - the direction your bed is facing, the direction your doors are facing, how many steps go up to your home, your house number, etc etc. Thais and Chinese live breath and eat this sort of thing.
So, keeping on thread, I'd say if you buy a tract home, your values are more than likely going to go up. If you build your own, your land value may go up, but your house price may go down.
My 2 cents.

[LoveDaBlues]

My two cents worth, Ive been watching the websites for teh Udon real Estate companies for a year or so now. In order to sell a property, prices are being reduced and even then there are still properties for sale now cheaper than they were a year ago that still cant be sold.

Maybe BKK is different but on what ive seen id say decreasing.

Houses for sale thru the local real estate websites are known for being overpriced to start with. With few exceptions a person would be a fool to buy a house via this route. Also, there are seldom good deals to be made with the 'bank repos' as insiders scoop these up before they even hit the public market.

[Tafia]

We bought two years ago for 1.8 million, one is up for sale on our moobaan for 2.8 million.

Rises in costs of material certainly raises the cost of new homes but as parrot points out the resale of these 'farang' properties have a limited market.
Remember a house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, despite its price tag!

[JimboPSM]

As Tafia says above, ultimately, any property is only worth what a buyer will pay for it.

Sooner or later (as has been seen in western economies) house prices are affected by the ability of purchasers to finance them.

As a rather sweeping generalisation, property price rises tend to lead in good times and gain a momentum which carries them some way beyond what they are worth; however, when times go bad, property prices are resistant to falls as seller expectations and optimism strongly resist reality and thus will tend to remain high until sufficient sellers are forced into the position that they are forced to sell.

Sadly, for most current potential western buyers, I see little or no prospect for most of those who lost substantial amounts of money in their own country in the financial meltdown and who are also at the tail end of their earning years being able to recover their previous financial position.

Additionally for many of those same western buyers this has been exacerbated by the appreciation of the THB and/or depreciation of their own home currency – this can only get worse for those from countries that do not address the causes of the weakness of their currencies (e.g. an unsustainable fiscal deficit).

The combination of a substantial diminution in wealth from the financial meltdown in their own currency and the impact of a major shift in the exchange rate for many westerners will inevitably result in fewer western buyers over the coming years.

Despite protestations from some to the contrary, Thailand is not disconnected from what is happening economically in the rest of the world, and in my view prices will fall – but not for some time (unless you are lucky enough to find a seller that must sell).

However, having said that, there is the grey area to be considered as to whether the ability and desire of the domestic market might be sufficient to maintain property prices at their current level -this is an area that I really don’t have a clue