Siam Real Estate July Newsletter
Where has the year gone, Wimbledon over already and well into summer?
Cost of living:
The world is in a mess and we're even feeling it a little here, however to a much lesser extent as the price for petrol has gone from around 0.32 baht a litre to 0.39.5 baht a litre, about 0.60 pence or 0.008 Euros compared with 1.19 pounds per litre in UK, so it is HALF the price here in Thailand. A dozen eggs here cost .032 baht (0.50 pence) or compared to Sainsbury’s 2.35 pounds. We won’t do any further calculations it will depress you too much!
The fact is it is still very cheap to live or stay here in Thailand compared to Europe. Property, health care (hospitals, operations, dental care), private schooling, and general living costs are 40% or more below Europe even in the current dismal world climate.
Why Thailand?
In a word “Freedom”, as soon as you live here with its wonderful climate and friendly people all the stresses fall off your shoulders and you can at last relax. No more heavy taxes, bad government and increased legislation. No speeding, parking tickets and officious officialdom, no one bothering you, a safe environment with little crime and most importantly low cost of living. A perfect place to retire, invest or holiday. For example in the UK if you go to a hospital with something wrong, and need tests for a diagnosis it takes a fortnight to get the answer and the stress of waiting is unbearable. Here you know the diagnosis in ONE hour. We rest our case!
World Oil prices?:
It does not take an economist to tell us that oil prices are likely to remain high and even go higher in the future as the world demand is ever on the increase and the worlds supply is drying up in the next 50 years we are told. So what do you do wait or make a decision?
Air Flights are and will become more expensive, as will all commodities and material costs will continue to rise, so waiting for reductions in costs is not going to happen in fact the opposite, already we are seeing new projects increasing their prices (7-15%). Demand is still strong here in Phuket and if you are thinking of buying a condo with attraction of “foreign freehold” they are running out fast:
Condos with Foreign Freeholds:
Seller Finance packages:
The Thai banks are beginning to relax controls on lending money to foreigners as long as it is through a new project where the developer provides security to the bank in the way of land title and is then able to offer the buyer usually a mortgage of up to 50% of the purchase price on attractive terms. We now have some 25 new off plan projects with such offers. For details on private mortgages which are more difficult to get please see UOB bank details.
Crème de la Crème – You will see on our home page we have now added a new section. These new off plan projects Villas and Condos in Phuket are in our opinion the “best of the best” and the criteria we use for listing any property under this section are as follows:
Quality
Design
Location
Value for money
Return on Investment
Rental Return
We have a choice of over 250 new projects and hopefully this will assist you in narrowing down your selection and we look forward to accompany you to view some of this selection in due course, free airport pick up included!
