That is probably an isolated success story...

Taking prime Sukhumvit condo prices for new buildings, they have hung around 100,000 - 140,000 THB / sqm in the past years.

Not bad at first glance but if you then drive past these buildings at night and see that 70% of the units are dark at night you start to wonder about occupancy. Lower occupancy will mean less maintenance being done and common fees going up. Many buildings start with THB 40/sqm and within two years of opening you pay THB 60/sqm.

You then look at places like prakard.com and see places listed at a discount and listed forever. Someone will list a unit for sale and bump it every 2 weeks. I saw threads were decent enough condos on prakard.com are listed, the thread is bumped by the OP every other week and 6 months later he/she is still in there bumping it. This should give you an indication of the lack of liquidity in the second hand market. They had thousands of new units come on the market last year.

The only market segment where I see it relatively easy to re-sell and even possible to make a buck is with entry level condos where you have 1 bedroom ~45sqm for under 5M Baht close to public transport.

This is one of these markets where it's almost a better option to buy stocks into the local property developers and put the dividends towards paying your rental house. At least you have liquidity....


Thai residential property
1Q14 stays soft; hope for a better 2Q


Asian Property Dev PCL
Aggressive presales target for 2014


Quality Houses PCL
Low growth target for 2014