Bangkok’s Real Estate Properties Market

Bangkok’s Real Estate Properties Market

The past political events in Bangkok have raised concerns about whether the country could recover from the any trouble if a crisis did emerge. The past Stand-off with red shirts -yellow shorts etc and goverments in Bangkok temporarily shook the whole nation and it has somewhat affected the country's tourism industry ---for what - a few weeks? This is the story of Thailand. Some minor internal distractions, but life stays the same for foreigners.

Although it will still take several months before the effects on Bangkok’s economy will be noticed by the recent election, most Thailand watchers say there is little or will be there any major change in the real estate market. The place histroically is stable.

Supply of Real Estate Investments

The total overall supply of an expat standard apartment in Bangkok are actually increasing to about 2.3% each year and 89% rate occupancy rate. Rents have been increasing on some locations in Bangkok, including the Central areas, although it fell on some other locations. This is true in any market.

Despite the increase in the number of hotels all over Bangkok, the occupancy rates are still increasing, although the average daily rate has decreased on the first quarter. The arrival of international tourists has increased by about 27.1% on the first quarter of 2010, which obviously is an indication that the Tourism Industry is gradually increasing. However, when the Bangkok stand-off happened, there was predictable short term loss of tourism.

Currently, the real estate markets remained steady and there was no indication of any increase in signiifcant supply. The retail occupancy rate has increased to about 92%, while rents remained at that same level. Several shopping centers were closed down in Central Bangkok. There was also an increase of 175% in Bangkok's townhouse completions on the last quarter, single detached house completions fell.

The existing supply of condominiums in downtown Bangkok reached to 67,176 units, from the 65,067 units during the first quarter of 2010. This shows an increase of 3.2% quarter after quarter, and a 15.8% increase year after year. There were around 2,109 units completed during this quarter and another 5,220 units are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010 which will increase the total downtown condominium stock significantly to about 72,396 units or around 11.3% year after year.

Summary of real estate investment in Bangkok

On the lighter side, the property market in Thailand, particularly the real estate, did not actually react the same way it does with countries like US and UK, when these countries suffered economic downturn. Prices of real estate properties in Bangkok did not increase rapidly although on the flip side, it did not collapse. In an nugt shell the pattern is generally stable, as compared to when the US was hit by economic crisis. This is maybe due to the fact of the different fundamentals in Bangkok real estate market. One issue is with the dropping us currency value owners from the US in bangkok saw an increase value of around 20%.

In answer to the question on how the Bangkok property market is coping up with all these turmoil, it is probably best to consider the mentality of Bangkok property owners and investors as well. These people were not necessarily looking at the short term gain, and so they are not at all affected with the varous political or social instabilty in a major way. They remained positive and believe that these things will just come to passas they have for more than 100 years. In fact, when the Red shirts encamped in the Rajaprasong area, there was really no major reaction from the people, and the economy itself. There were no mass drop in on the prices of goods and even the Bangkok rental market remained stable.

For those looking for condominium properties to buy in Bangkok, there's good news to them. There are values to be had here and stable investments.