123ace

Ripley, the best approach is to appoint a good international property management company (as there are no consistently good local ones). They have the skills, however as 99.9% of condo owners want to pay the least amount possible by way of fees, the quality of management staff is often quite poor.

The solution is to pay higher CAM fees and hire an international company with expat staff and oversight (basically career and trained asset mangers - not a nice lady turning her hand to it!) and make sure you receive international standard quality.

Having the Developer stay long after completion tends not to work as they have limited financial incentive, and it means that they are forever expected to handle defects for eternity! Quite a few developers do this (to protect their unsold units) and it is one of the major causes of upset.

Without exception, bidding for property management companies here comes down to pricing - lowest price wins - the owners through greed and narrow mindedness complain about poor service and never question their own decision making process. Dare I say this is, but the problem is most common in buidlings densely populated by owners that inherited their wealth and did not have to figure out real world economics and therefore see management staff as modern day slaves.

If you follow the property news you will see a few clear trends, notably that developers are down-sizing unit sizes for houses and condos, seeking the lowest possible constuction and sales prices and ensuring 90 - 100% mortgages remain available for buyers.

We are effectively seeing deflation of the property market indicated by the nature of the supply trend. The higher end of the market has in fact peaked - due to almost no new demand from end users (i.e fewer speculators now at the high end). The foreign buying trend is off sharply due to exchange rates and lack of finacing, lack of end user demand and is not expected to return any time soon.

Be assured that we face a major correction here.

I don't mean to sound awful, but I think this question resonates best with two groups, group (1) - retirees that have the finances / pensions etc from a career in the West and are looking for the quiet life, not very materialistic in their needs etc, and group (2) - Less wealthy young males, who don't have the best of things in the UK anyway, limited job prospects here or there and living here is genuinely better at that level.

For sucessfull and wealthy expats it is not all that here anymore. There are limted education choices for kids - assuming that you wish your kids to receive the same quality of (private) education that you benefited from. Home ownership and the rule of law is better in the UK. A super car here costs upwards of 10 million baht vs 1 - 2 mil in the UK. But groups 1 & 2 above aren't in to the cars anyway as group 1 has grown out of them and group 2 could never have had one anyway, so this point has no relevance for most. Neither group 1 or 2 is likley to have child dependants - again, a big factor in the OP's question in terms of releveance.

Property, we can't own a big house here (freehold) and a condo that a 30 - 40 year high flyer woudl live in in the West is expensive here, circa 25 - 30 ++ mil cash. No mortgages, so cash only. Again, groups 1 & 2 above, can in group 1 buy a good condo (with a lifetimes savings) or rent, and group 2 can rent from THB 20 to 50k and even at the lower end it beats a council flat in Peckham..

So what's missing? the wealthy younger set with a caree in th eprofessions is almost non exsitent here - unlike Hong Kong or SIngapore where wealthy younger expats flourish, and groups 1 & 2 are almost non existent.


Now you may have your answer.

<P>Exporters have made massive revenues through forex gain. This is evidenced in part by the surge in super car showrooms around Bangkok and high end condo sales in the local (I said local as in - not Pattaya or farang leasehold villa rubbish ok) sector where sales are rapid. <BR><BR>Tourism will decline as will foreign property investment.<BR><BR>Its all due to QE1 and QE2 in the US. There is little that can be done, and the US story is far, far from over, so its best to not react yet anyway with any intervention.<BR></P>

Naam - are you serioulsy betting against gold? or is this all a cover for a secret gold horder?

It seems reasonably likley we will see 19,000 before years end based on the evidence not discusssed in the main stream media.

Are you equally anti silver?