Life in Thailand has its ups and downs – but luckily, the property market has proved to be rather resilient. The crash of 1997, the Tsunami and anti government protests that followed could have all had a negative result on foreign investments in to Thailand. However, well-informed investors have seen these dips as perfect opportunities to purchase properties in the land of smiles.
Phuket is a perfect example of this and it continues to attract foreign property investors. The luxury development named Serene: the Village is one of the popular developments attracting expat investors. The development is the brainchild of English entrepreneur Chris Gordon who had previously completed a development in 2004 only to see the tsunami take away all his hard work.
Chris believes that the taste of Thai life here along with Thailand being one of the most secure Asian investment destinations, offering good infrastructure as well as great transport links to other parts of Asia. Stretching out over 500 yards of diamond white beach, Mr Gordon’s development consists of 112 villas with its own pool. Each villa has between two and five bedrooms. Already there are other projects starting up nearby which have also proved to be very popular amongst expat investors.
Chris goes on to explain that the secret to investing in property in South-East Asia is how much you can earn in rental income. The larger developing companies have realised this and in order to attract the foreign investors have many different systems in place in order to rent out the property. Some of these include a guaranteed rental return system that has also proved very popular.
Over the last few years, the rental return has been around 12.6 % per annum. This return becomes more impressive when you consider that the capital gains of the property over the same period have been around 15 to 20%.
Life can be sweet for a property investor in Thailand as long as he or she has done all their homework before entering in to any deals. Many investors are so confident in the market that they have started to buy different units from various developments around Thailand on an off plan basis.
This allows the investor to secure a unit with only a 30% deposit and further funds are payable as the project progresses. Having spread the risk over a few developments, the smart investor will see which of his investments have matured and are ready to sell off even before the project has completed or any further funds have been paid to the developer.
