Expat & Thai Expat: Buy or Rent  your accommodation
Low price of property & property in Thailand ?

Where do you plan to live?

If you want to rent for the foreseeable future, that is reasonably straightforward - rent a house or apartment. Buying however depends on where your interest lies - it's not as easy as deciding whether a house or apartment.

The relatively low price of property in Thailand means that many expats who decide to settle here are tempted to buy a residential property, or a shophouse for their Thai spouse to run a business while they sometimes live ­upstairs.

There are far more residential properties available than there are potential buyers. Some have stood empty for years. So, one could reasonably conclude that it is a buyer's market, right? Wrong.

Most people don't like to lose money. And Thai property owners are no different. Having had to pay inordinately high interest rates to the banks if they had a mortgage on their property (which they may still be paying), or a substantial amount of pre-devaluation Baht if they paid cash, they are obviously against suffering a loss on the property ­ even, it seems, when they start running short of cash.

So if you are looking at property purely from an investment perspective, it could take many years for the overall costs to be recovered.  Even in developed markets, property values over the long term in Thailand just about match inflation.

Unlike in the West, where the title to the property guarantees the bank in the event of default, and an endowment or insurance policy its money in the event of the borrower dying, the laws in Thailand to help banks recoup bad debts were only implemented very recently.

I know of other cases where a property was bought as a long-term investment, and has become a millstone round the owner's neck. The property is sitting idle with no prospective buyers in sight, no rental income, but still incurring a tax liability each year.  It is therefore a depreciating capital asset which is a drain on resources, rather than an income-generating investment.

Under the current land ownership laws foreigners cannot own land or houses in their own names. As in all business transactions here or indeed anywhere, caveat emptor is the rule: Let the buyer beware.

At the end of the day, it is entirely up to you whether you buy or rent your home, and this is often an emotive rather than rational decision.

Buying a property to live in is one thing; buying it as an investment is another, whether in Thailand or indeed anywhere.

But after taking into consideration the significant capital outlay, bureaucratic complications, peripheral costs, taxes and inflexibility, my advice would have to be: rent don't buy.