Pattaya Property and Thailand's Real Estate: How to Buy Thai Condominiums, Apartments, Homes & Villas

PATTAYA PROPERTY

AND THAILAND’S REAL ESTATE

How to Buy Thai Condominiums, Apartments, Homes & Villas

2013 Edition

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012-2013 Nick Pendrell

Also available in paperback from all good bookstores.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9561448-4-3

Preface to the 2013 Edition

If you read the original 2012 edition of the book and are simply looking to catch up on how the market has developed from the summer of 2012 through to the spring of 2013, I have some good news for you – you don’t have to read through the entire book from start to finish once more.

There have been no major changes to the property laws in Thailand over the past nine months and so all of the information in Part One of the book remains exactly how it was in the previous version. There are just two pieces of errata following feedback from readers of the first edition:

A clarification regarding the year that the Condominium Act was passed. The first Condominium Act was passed in 1979. At that time the maximum percentage for foreign ownership was put at 40%. The maximum percentage of foreign owned units was increased to 49% in the current draft of the Act from 2008.

In Chapter 6 on Visas, I stated that, in order to qualify for a Non-Immigrant O-A visa, an applicant would need to either bring a minimum of THB 800,000 into the country in foreign currency and show an income of THB 65,000 or more per month. This information is incorrect as it should have said or an income of THB 65,000 per month.

There have been no other changes to the information in Part One of the book.

Part Two of the book, however, contains a lot of changes. First of all, there are a dozen new developments detailed in the book, with some of the projects in the first book having been removed as they sell out of their foreign ownership units. In addition to the new releases, prices and availabilities for all of the projects in the previous version have been completely revised and updated so that they are up-to-date once more. Finally, due to the changing prices and availabilities, many of the comparisons between the projects have been updated as well – some of the projects which were bargains back in the summer of 2012 are no longer such a good deal as prices rise and the best value units sell out.

So, if you want to be sure that you have the most up-to-date information at your disposal, I recommend reading Part Two of the book all over again from start to finish.

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction

PART ONE - HOW TO BUY PATTAYA PROPERTY 

- BACKGROUND AND BUYING PROCESS

2.  An Introduction to Pattaya

3.  Legalities of Property Ownership

4.  Researching the Market

5.  Getting to Pattaya

6.  Visas

7.  Opening a Bank Account

8.  The Viewing Trip

9.  The Buying Process

Finalise the Deal

Buying in Single or Joint Names

Reservation Forms and Reservation Fees

Contracts

The Handover

Registering the Property

10.  Fees and Taxes

Purchasing Taxes

Annual Taxes

Sales Taxes

Wills & Heirs

11.  Living in Pattaya

12.  Renting Out Your Condo

PART TWO – CHOOSING YOUR PROPERTY

13.  Overview

14.  North Pattaya (Naklua & Wongamat)

The Sanctuary

Centara Grand Modus

Club Royal

The Serenity

Baan Plai Haad

The Palm

Wong Amat Tower

15.  Central Pattaya

City Garden

Golden Tulip

City Center Residence

The Chezz

Park Plaza Waterfront

16.  Pratumnak Hill

Cosy Beach View

The Peak Towers

Amari Residences

Southpoint

Laguna Bay 1

Laguna Bay 2

C-View

Water Park

New Nordic Trend Village

VN Residence 3

City Garden Pratumnak

17.  Jomtien

Cetus

Acqua

Dusit Grand Condo

AD The Grand Jomtien

Sky

Savanna Sands

Aba Talay

Atlantis

Amazon

Laguna Beach Resort 1

Laguna Beach Resort 2

Laguna Beach Resort 3 - The Maldives

Seven Seas Condo Resort

Zen in the Park

Grande Caribbean Condo Resort

Treetops

18.  Na Jomtien

Centara Grand Residence

Nam Talay

Beach Front Jomtien

19.  Bang Saray

CW Ocean View

Bang Saray Beach Villas (Talay Sawan)

20.  East Pattaya

Patta Village

Baan Dusit Villas

Siam Royal View

Amaya Hill

21.  Conclusions

22.  A Final Reminder

Appendix 1 - Final Cost Calculator

About the Author

1. Introduction

Welcome to Thailand – the Land of Smiles!

It’s hard to find anywhere else in the world that offers quite as much as Thailand does. If you’re looking for Paradise on Earth, then Thailand is probably the closest that you are ever going to get to it. With its warm, tropical climate; friendly and welcoming people; lush and exotic vegetation; crystal blue waters; golden sandy beaches; delicious national cuisine; a vast array of entertainment options catering for all tastes – and all at highly affordable prices - it’s hardly surprising that Thailand has become one of the world’s most popular holiday destinations, attracting just under 20 million visitors in 2011 alone.

Apart from the capital, Bangkok, the world’s favourite location in Thailand is Pattaya, a beachfront resort city on the Gulf of Thailand which has quickly become one of the world’s leading playgrounds. Pattaya is expecting a record 8.2 million visitors in 2012 making it the second most-popular destination in Thailand after Bangkok. No matter what you might be looking for from an ideal holiday destination, Pattaya has got the lot, whether it’s relaxing on sandy beaches, swimming in the sea or sampling its legendary nightlife.

With all this to offer, it’s hardly surprising that so many people return to Pattaya over and over again. And many of those returning visitors are interested in putting down some more permanent roots in the city, whether as a holiday home from home, which provides a warm bolthole to use for escaping the winter blues, or as a permanent residence. Now that Thailand is offering special retirement visas for anyone over 50, increasing numbers of people are selling up in their home countries and moving to Pattaya. Here cold winters and an exorbitant cost of living will quickly become nothing more than unhappy memories and they can enjoy a fabulous standard of living from £1,300/$2,100 per month.

Many of those looking to visit Pattaya on a regular basis – or move here permanently – are interested in buying a property. The attractions are fairly obvious – no more rent to pay and the opportunity of making it your own personal space with your own personal style. And then there’s the impressive investment potential of buying real estate in Pattaya to consider as well.

As was the case across the entire world, 2008 was a bad year for real estate sales across Thailand as potential buyers panicked due to property bubbles bursting across most of Europe and the US. However, as was the case with the majority of property markets throughout South East Asia, confidence was soon restored in this part of the world and prices started rising again steadily from 2009.

Despite three years of increasing prices, real estate is still surprisingly affordable in Pattaya, with units in prime locations starting from just THB 825,000 (£17,000/$27,500), - still less than the price of a half-decent new car. For the real estate market in general though, it’s still pretty early days – there is a huge amount of growth left in the market, so don’t think that you’ve missed the boat if you are looking to buy property primarily for its investment potential. Prices still have a long, long way to go before they peak, because many potential buyers are still reeling from drops in prices in previously over-inflated markets such as those in Spain and Florida. As a result, many people are being overly cautious about returning to the international property market. While others are waiting though, you can be profiting.

Real estate is a commodity like any other, whether it be gold, stocks, currencies, pork bellies or anything else – prices are determined by the laws of supply and demand. Bubbles occur when people forget this and they let greed take over. Dubai was a perfect example of this. A very high percentage of buyers there weren’t buying apartments to use the properties themselves, they were buying as speculators – buying in the hope that they could resell the property to another speculator further down the line at a higher price. Unfortunately in the case of Dubai, when times got tough in 2008, the whole market came crashing down like a pack of cards. This is because there was not the demand from regular ‘end users’ – people that just are buying simply because they need a roof over their heads – to keep prices stable or to continue heading upwards.

Conversely, however, house prices across much of Northern Europe were fairly unaffected by the recession, because far fewer properties were acquired there on a speculative basis. Demand still outstrips supply across much of Europe, so prices have remained high throughout the period.

Bearing the above in mind, what is the potential for real estate in Thailand and Pattaya in particular? It all means that the potential is very good, because demand for condominiums in Pattaya is growing consistently. In addition to those looking for affordable holiday homes abroad, the number of people deciding to retire in Thailand is increasing constantly, and they all need somewhere to live.

Another advantage which Thailand has over most other countries in the world is the very cosmopolitan nature of its visitors. Spain suffered a major downturn in prices due to the fact that nearly all of the buyers of Spanish property came from Northern Europe. Florida’s downturn came from the fact that most buyers were American – and the EU and the US were the two economies most greatly affected by the recession. This is not the case with Thailand, however. The largest percentage of visitors to Thailand come from China and other parts of South East Asia – the part of the world which saw the least impact from the recession. For Pattaya in particular, the biggest groups of foreign visitors, by quite a wide margin, come from China and Russia.

The incredible rise in the fortunes of China over the past two decades has been well-documented. The tremendous influx of wealth into China has seen property prices there spiralling upwards at a fast pace over the past few years and has reached a point where many analysts believe prices there are now overinflated. In spring 2012, prices in some of China’s key cities saw some drops for the first time and so it looks as if the Chinese property bubble is now starting to slowly deflate. Rental yields in some of China’s major cities are now as low as 3% - a key indicator that property prices are unrealistically high. This means that canny Chinese investors are now starting to look outside the country for property purchases and Thailand, just a short flight away, makes an ideal holiday destination for them, in the same way that Spain is attractive for Northern Europeans.

Russia was also not greatly affected by the recession and overseas property ownership is still a fairly new concept for the majority of Russians, so few of them were ‘burned’ by buying in the wrong places pre-2008. As a result of this, plus the fact that visa requirements for Russians are quite relaxed compared to most other parts of the world, Russians’ appetite for buying overseas property is growing rapidly all the time and they are currently gobbling up condos in Pattaya like there’s no tomorrow.

In addition to the supply and demand factors that make Pattaya a very attractive place for purchasing property, there’s also the old real estate cliché of ‘location, location, location’ to consider.

Think of the entire landmass of the Earth. How much of that area is within 500m of the sea? And how much of that is located in a region which has warm temperatures throughout the year? I can’t give you an exact figure, but I do know that the percentage starts with 0.0 and then there are a lot more zeroes before you get to the percentage sign! But what difference does this make? It’s back to supply and demand again. Who wouldn’t love to live right on the beach if they could possibly afford it? Failing that, who wouldn’t want to live just ten minutes’ walk away from it? Of course everyone would love to if only they could afford it. But beachfront is a very limited resource and no one can build any more of it (with the possible exception of ‘The Palm’ and other similar projects in Dubai, which may or may not still be standing a decade from now, depending upon whose opinion you listen to!).

Because the property boom in Pattaya is still a fairly recent phenomenon, there are still some prime building plots in the city which are just now in the process of being developed, although they are already getting few and far between in Central Pattaya. Once the plots have been built on and the condos sold, then they are off the primary market and developers will need to start building either further up or down the coast, making it a long journey to get to Pattaya’s current downtown area, or else they will need to build further inland, making it a longer journey for those who want to get to the beach. The bottom line? Those buyers who were lucky or clever enough to purchase a condo in a prime location either right on, or close to, the beach and near the city centre are going to be able to resell their property for much more than they paid for it once there are no more new developments in such good locations on the primary market. And, while they are waiting for resale prices to rise, they can achieve some excellent rental income from people who want to live there for a more limited period. It’s a ‘win-win’ situation for anyone who doesn’t leave it too long to get into Pattaya’s property market.

Hopefully I have answered any questions you might have as to why you should buy real estate in Pattaya and why now is a great time to do it. The rest of the book should hopefully answer any questions that you might have about how to buy real estate and also what real estate you should buy, depending on your particular circumstances, desires and lifestyle choices.

Part One is the ‘How?’ section of the book. It is more or less organized chronologically, holding your hand through the entire buying process in the order that you should undertake the search for your perfect Pattaya property. My recommendation is that you first read through Part One of the book quickly, from start to finish, in order to see the ‘big picture’ regarding the entire buying process and how all of the different elements to it fit together. Once you have a basic overview of the whole process, then read it through a second time, completing each stage of the process before moving on to the next one. In such a way, you can be sure that you are not missing out on any stage of the process which could delay your purchase, involve a wasted trip over to Pattaya or (if you do something really dumb) end up losing all your money, your property and finding yourself spending time in a Thai jail!

Part Two is the ‘What?’ section. Here you will find all of the facts and figures you need on more than forty of the most popular developments on the Pattaya market at the time of writing. These are organized by region so that you can easily compare similar projects against one another. In each case, I point out the good, the bad and the ugly on each development according to my own personal opinion rather than simply copying and pasting each developer’s gushing marketing spiel. All of the details are correct to the best of my knowledge as at the time of writing, which is January 2013.

Whereas the information contained in Part One of the book is fairly evergreen (providing that the government doesn’t make any major changes to the property laws any time soon), the details of the developments in Part Two will date very quickly in such a fast-moving market as Pattaya and so will serve more as a snapshot of the market as of one particular time rather than a definitive guide which will last for years.

Because of this, I have set up a companion webpage to this book, which you can find at:

www.informerbooks.com/pattaya/

Here you will find regularly updated information regarding the status of the developments I cover, plus useful information that I wasn’t able to include in the book, such as pictures of each development and maps showing exactly where each of the developments are located. Please check the website as you read through Part Two of the book to check what the current situation is regarding each of the developments.

If you have any questions at all about any parts of the book that aren’t clear to you or you would like more information on any of the developments that I cover in the book, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please feel free to email any time at nick@informerbooks.com

It really makes my day every time I receive feedback from a reader, so please don’t feel shy about writing – I really would love to hear from you.

So, are you now ready to get started?

PART ONE

HOW TO BUY PATTAYA PROPERTY

BACKGROUND AND BUYING PROCESS

2. An Introduction to Pattaya

So what is Pattaya like? For those of you who have yet to visit the city, is it a place that you will be happy to return to over and over again – or maybe even move to permanently?

Pattaya’s history as a major tourist destination is a relatively short one as, until the start of the Sixties, Pattaya was nothing more than a sleepy little fishing village. This began to change during the Vietnam War when the area was used by the US Army as a destination where their servicemen could go to get some R&R. The locals were more than happy to provide the relaxing servicemen with a variety of entertainment options, and so the seeds were sown for Pattaya to start growing into a major international tourist destination. Fishing huts were soon replaced with international hotels as the city grew rapidly in order to cope with ever-increasing demand from holiday makers, keen to sample all that Pattaya has to offer.

One of Pattaya’s main attractions is its fabulous weather. Temperatures in Pattaya are fairly consistent around the year – they are never too far off 30C/87F – rarely more than 7C/10F warmer or cooler than this.

What does vary tremendously from month to month, however, is the amount of rainfall which Pattaya receives. It has a typically tropical climate which has an annual monsoon season (which is why the vegetation around Pattaya is so green and lush). The monsoon season starts in May and ends in October, making this the low season, when prices for accommodation are lower and the city is quieter. Through most of this period, it tends to rain for just short periods of an hour or so, although when it rains, it really comes down in buckets. September and early October is the wettest period of the year, when it can sometimes be raining on and off for much of the day.

Late October through April is Pattaya’s high season, where most days are hot and rain-free, making Pattaya the perfect destination for anyone looking to escape from cold winter temperatures in Europe and North