Foreign and Thai buyers alike are flocking to the beaches of Pattaya, snapping up condominiums and giving the local real estate market a needed boost. As the closest beach to the capital of Bangkok and boasting top of the line amenities, the beachside city will only continue to grow in the near future, according to Property Wire.
The resort town’s profile has continued to grow in recent months with the arrival of several celebrity residents, including snooker legend Jimmy White. Sales are being driven in large part by non-resident Europeans, especially Russians. A large portion of sales comes from Thai buyers as well, who are generally purchasing units as holiday homes or investments.
Recent trends have seen buyers favoring condos over apartments, for a number of reasons. In an apartment building if there is a problem with the unit, the building manager is on hand to resolve this. In a condominium building the property manager is responsible only for the management of the common areas and not the individual units. Condominium building managers have no responsibility for repairs or maintenance inside individual condominium units.
Identifying important factors in a development’s success, Theerathorn Prapunpong, director of Residential Leasing Services at CBRE, explained that ‘location alone is not enough. The unit types and sizes need to match market requirements as do the fixtures, fittings, furniture and appliances. It is a combination of both location and design that enables projects to succeed in a competitive market.”
In order to succeed, apartment developers need to clearly identify the needs of tenants in terms of unit type and size and examine the competition for each size of unit. Getting the combination of location, size and design to maximize returns is complicated and need a depth of market exposure and experience, and CBRE is now providing a design development consultancy service for developers, analysing and interpreting real market information from over 300 expatriate residential leasing transactions that the company concludes each year.
Source: Property Report
