There are many reasons for fluctuations in the Thai property market. One thing for certain is that; on the whole, Thai property prices are on the increase.
This page explores five major areas in which the Thai property market fluctuates and the reasons behind them.
Political Unrest
The political situation in Thailand is unstable to say the least. It has been for years and shows no signs of stabilising any time soon.
This does have a negative effect on property prices, as the images of Thai’s rioting are beamed all over the world.
That said this doesn’t have as much of a negative impact on property prices as one might expect.
Tourism
The tourism industry in Thailand must be one of the biggest in Asia, if not the whole world.
Year on year millions of foreign tourists flock to the Land of Smiles to experience a taste of Asia and the laid back Thai way of life.
This obviously has a positive effect on property prices and the more tourists come to Thailand the more the price of property will increase.
Natural Disasters
Thailand, in recent years, has had a couple of pretty serious natural disasters. Many are not reported in the international news.
The Tsunami of 2004 is obviously one disaster that was reported worldwide, and every country was made aware of the devastation felt on islands such as Phuket and in other areas around Krabi.
It is obvious that this will have a negative effect on property prices in the region, in the short term, as people are wary of returning.
In the long term though, tourism isn’t affected by any of the natural disasters suffered by the region.
Global Economic Crisis
The global economic crisis has affected pretty much every country in the world. Markets crashed in 2007 and 2008 and are still recovering.
Property prices the world over plummeted, leaving many unfortunate families in negative equity and even homeless.
The strange thing is how little this affected property prices in Thailand. Property prices never seemed to flinch for even a moment.
This is still the case and many investors are counting their blessings that they decided to purchase property in Thailand, rather than in their own country.
Currency
All of the reasons above have one common major impact in the Thai property market, in the way that they will generally alter currency values.
Basically the choice on which way to go can be made only by you. It all depends on whether you decide to bring all your money into Thailand in the hope that the market in your country will continue to get weaker, or leave your money abroad thinking that, one day, the Thai market is certain to collapse.
That is a million dollar question and one that is certain to affect the price of your Thai property over and above all else.
