Which is the Best Area In Hua Hin to Settle?

[advocate]

Buying a house off plan is a huge gamble in terms of what you get for quality and build time. If you buy something that has been lived in, usually most problems have already been fixed.

My original plan was to install 10,000 liters of water storage, but since I have well water supply, I have scaled this back to 4,000 liters.

Some people I know on municipal water have up to 15,000 liter tanks, depending on where they are located.

[Korkenzieher]

This may not be directly relevant to the OP, but others may be reading.

When you are considering whether to pay rent or to buy, the fact that it may be someones mortgage being paid off isn't the only consideration. Rents in HH can be below debt servicing costs on equivalent property, simply because so many owners don't have a mortgage to service - or they bought so long ago that it is a trivial cosideration.

Rental costs can be much tighter, often being closer to aggregated maintenance, running and insurance costs- especially if you are looking of something of the order of 6 months, and not overlapping with the high season. I regularly price property on a rent equivalent basis and still think much HH property is overpriced on that basis alone. That's one argument for taking a 6 month rental first, until you find your feet.

[jimmy40]

Sorry everyone, rung service is in soi 80. I stand corrected, i was there last week with a mate. I will be more carefull on my type'o. And or stupididity

[av8er]

Ah! Now that the doomsayers have slid away, we're getting some good posts, thanks everyone I think I may have put the comma in the wrong place-I was looking at some old photos and for..."1,000 litres" read 10,000 litres I would never buy a new build, as I said in an earlier post, for the reasons others have stated: settling, and getting the b*ggers to come back and fix the damn thing. To me, buying off-plan is the same as buying a car over the phone: there's no way I'm buying without a test drive

[SunandFun]

Ah! Now that the doomsayers have slid away, we're getting some good posts, thanks everyone I think I may have put the comma in the wrong place-I was looking at some old photos and for..."1,000 litres" read 10,000 litres I would never buy a new build, as I said in an earlier post, for the reasons others have stated: settling, and getting the b*ggers to come back and fix the damn thing. To me, buying off-plan is the same as buying a car over the phone: there's no way I'm buying without a test drive

Glad you are getting what you are looking for av8er! We don't really mean to be smart asses, but the Forum is also a form of entertainment for a lot of us. Don't worry as long as you ask specific enough questions, you will get good answers and the occasional tongue in cheek one also. This has turned into a good Topic and will surely be helpful to many in the future.

[chaspul]

Disagree with your thoughts about buying "off plan" being like buying a car over the phone. Why would you want a standard model when it could be delivered "fully loaded" and suit your every need without being altered at a later date?

Spent a week or so with an agent looking at standard pre built properties, non suited our needs.

Our needs? No steps as we are not getting younger, Large master and ensuite, second bedroom for her sewing and very occasional visitor. Large kitchen as we both like to cook and a workshop/hobby place for me although this is a dumping place at present for anything Mrs doesn't want in house.

Oh and it had to be way above sea level, we spent 6 weeks in a beach cottage in Samui leaving two weeks before the big Sunami, I know it didn't hit this side of the country, but it brought it home that if it had, we would not have stood a chance.

Eventually found a developer/project manager who had already built two small single story, 3 bedroom, projects, out near the Queens farm (150ft ASL) and we liked the potential of his design. From memory he told us "there are about 6 approved designs registered with local authority, but inside walls could be moved (within reason)".

Having explained our needs we drew up rough plans to loose the middle bedroom, some space added to master for fitted wardrobes, the remainder divided up into family bathroom which is now also ensuite to second bedroom and open office space making the living room look larger.
Moving the family bathroom increased the kitchen size and the master ensuite.

The carport was to be enclosed and become the workshop and as the family bathroom was now on the adjoining wall, in future facilities could be installed to make this into a self contained granny/maid flat giving the potential of 3 or even a 4th bedroom.

Plans, with my changes, were finalised over the internet as were all major design problems.

House shell complete it then came to fixtures and fittings (next payment), we had a holiday back in HH and upgraded fridge, oven and hob top, for which he gave us a rebate on his standard items and I included a jaccusi bath.

There were so many other changes from standard, different tiles, running hot water through out, after all this was going to be our retirement home.

Generally very happy with result but some things we would have changed if we were on site at the time, these were minor and we have since rectified them.

A neighbor who copied most of our design changes rented near his site for 6 months and seemed to visit every day, which ended up "annoying" the builders and project manager. I guess you have to find a middle of the road approach.

So we now have our ideal home "fully loaded", suited to our needs, open and airy, easy to keep clean, fairly inexpensive to run, although the swimming pool escalates the power bill.

Many of our friends are looking to move in to smaller places as they brought ready made "standard" homes, the developers ideal home, why with only a couple living in it would you want 4 or 5 bedrooms?
Most freely admit that at the time it looked like a good investment buying a big house at a good price compared to the UK.

Chas

[Pleng]

Disagree with your thoughts about buying "off plan" being like buying a car over the phone. Why would you want a standard model when it could be delivered "fully loaded" and suit your every need without being altered at a later date?

Spent a week or so with an agent looking at standard pre built properties, non suited our needs.

Our needs? No steps as we are not getting younger, Large master and ensuite, second bedroom for her sewing and very occasional visitor. Large kitchen as we both like to cook and a workshop/hobby place for me although this is a dumping place at present for anything Mrs doesn't want in house.

...

So we now have our ideal home "fully loaded", suited to our needs, open and airy, easy to keep clean, fairly inexpensive to run, although the swimming pool escalates the power bill.

I guess it depends if you have specific needs. For a lot of people, a house is simply somewhere to rest your head for the evening. For some, of course, they don't have the money to be quite so specific (though that doesn't appear to be a problem for the OP).

But for every person I've read about who is pleased with their purchase, I hear numerous horror stories of unfinished developments and developments that have been finished and problems starting to appear later where the developer is nowhere to be seen.

If you have genuine needs (or desires) for a particular layout then maybe it's worth the risk. But otherwise I think the stress factor is too much.

I'm pretty sure there's at least one forum member who, if he was around at the moment, would attest that buying "off plan" has pretty much made his life a misery.

Many of our friends are looking to move in to smaller places as they brought ready made "standard" homes, the developers ideal home, why with only a couple living in it would you want 4 or 5 bedrooms?
Most freely admit that at the time it looked like a good investment buying a big house at a good price compared to the UK.

Chas

If you mean "investment in your lifestyle" then maybe. But if you're talking about financial investment then no way is "buying" (let's not forget that you can't) anything in Thailand is far more risky and far less likely to yield bigger profits than buying in the UK. Not to mention any money you do make will be very hard to move around elsewhere, while getting your money on a UK investment would be easy enough just about anywhere in the world.

[chaspul]

Your right Pleng, also heard many horror stories of developers who don't come through with promised facilities or go bust before project is finished. Seems to be "mainly" on some of the larger developments where this happens.
In our case we knew what we wanted, found a developer who had already finished 2 small projects and was willing to listen. He is well established, now working on a 4th project near here, is a regular contributer to HHAD and his family a respected part of the HH community. We did our research.
We didn't build for profit/investment and as for moving money out of Thailand that will be the problem facing our heirs as we intend to stay and spend the rest of our days here. Will tell them to rent the house out using it as a holiday home.

Chas

[kendo]

If you are looking at resale property's it might be worth asking if you could rent it for a couple of months first to make sure your happy with it and your surroundings.
Kendo.

[av8er]

[

Glad you are getting what you are looking for av8er! We don't really mean to be smart asses, but the Forum is also a form of entertainment for a lot of us. Don't worry as long as you ask specific enough questions, you will get good answers and the occasional tongue in cheek one also. This has turned into a good Topic and will surely be helpful to many in the future. [/quote]


SunandFun I like your style! As I said in an earlier post, I don't want to upset or aggravate anyone-I get enough grief doing my day job here in the Blighted Isle. 83.33333%* of the reason why I want to-will-move to LOS is to get away from the heartache, the grief, the crime, the......fill in your own reason.....that has become this Septic Isle, 22 nautical miles NorthWest of France We're "planning" to do a recce, (another one!) next year, so keep your schedules free, I can feel an almighty p*ss up coming soon to a place near you...and you...yes, and even you


*plus VAT@ 20%...................................

[Super Joe]

In our case we knew what we wanted, found a developer who had already finished 2 small projects and was willing to listen. He is well established, now working on a 4th project near here, is a regular contributor to HHAD and his family a respected part of the HH community

...don't forget handsome

I would never buy a new build, as I said in an earlier post, for the reasons others have stated: settling, and getting the b*ggers to come back and fix the damn thing.

Things have changed a great deal recently in that it's firmly a buyers market. Developers need sales, so it's the buyers who are dictating contract conditions. I never really knew why buyers would so readily accept terms that did not include a retention for defects liability, 5% for 12 months was standard in the UK construction industry, but most developers today would reach agreement that provided financial cover for the buyer re: common defects like superficial cracks, leaks, elec. failures, door/window expansion etc etc. Risks associated with costly structural problems that can arise here (ie: settlement due to corner-cutting & under-sizing of the spec.) can be all but removed by quite basic inspections during the 6-8 week period of these key works (see below). A city engineer will happily do this for less than 10k Baht.

Re: the wider issue of potential risk to your overall investment due to a developer going bust, doing a moonlight flit etc with your money before the house is finished, you can also protect against this these days. We have transferred freehold/leasehold of the land to the buyer at the onset, so with say the usual 25% deposit, comes the land of the same approx. value. Thereafter the normal stages of the works... complete-offer-inspect-payment ...thereby customer always has the important balance over the account. Obviously the development's infrastructure needs to be sufficiently advanced to service the property.

Buying a house off plan is a huge gamble in terms of what you get for quality and build time. If you buy something that has been lived in, usually most problems have already been fixed

They have had time to settle, and you will soon see what the build standard is. Most thai builders fill the land with crappy land fill, and hence new one's that are crap you will see cracks etc. The house i bought was 1 year old, but no one had lived in it, so too me it was still new.

I disagree, where a house is less than 3 years (or 3 rain seasons) old. *3* being an uneducated guess I should add.

With a finished house you have no way of seeing the most critical elements, the foundations, most of the 'farang-style' resale properties for sale are still new. Depending upon the make up any structural inconsistencies, you 'may' be standing over a problem beneath your feet but all you can see is nice tiles. With a new build you can witness key elements posing the greatest risk, like did the 1.5m long foundations go down 2.5m because of that added 1m of landfill? How was the landfill compacted? Were the spread footings (column bases) formed to spec?, reinforcing rods 12mm dia., or 10mm left over from another job?

There's obviously more to it like the methodology used, but these critical elements can all be checked quite easily during construction, even by the untrained eye. A tape measure does most of it. But it would be more prudent to hire the services of an engineer, a city engineer would inspect these works as mentioned above.

Just my two-pennies worth

SJ

[GLCQuantum]

...don't forget handsome

A shameless plug if there ever was one...

I've heard from good friends that you do pretty good work though, so .... I try to refrain from posting silly posts on 'these' threads as it could possibly steer people clear of a decent builder guy, pool guy, alarm guy, gazebo guy, knicker stealer catcher guy and pretty much anything else relating to housing.

[chaspul]

SJ, glad you realised someone was talking about you, as for handsome????
My point to OP is dramaticaly shown on BBC TV lifestyle, where a (American) realtor shows a couple 3 houses, circa $350,000 to $450,000. Then a designer with computer shows how if they spend another $64,000+++ on changes, knocking down walls and enlarging the kitchen ect, the house may then fit their needs and lifestyle.
Point being, build it right first time!
Chas

[Takiap]

Some interesting points have been posted. My wife and I had our place built for us, but that was only because it was the cheaper option since we were more interested in land size than we were in fancy finishings and trimmings. It was also one of the reasons we chose not to buy in a development.

For the build, we found a Thai builder and I must say, he was ideal, and never once tried to pull a fast one. In fact, he actually more than he had to, at no extra cost to us. The plans were drawn up at the Tessaban for 6,000 baht after a local Farang agent quoted us 60,000 for plans.


To the OP.......I personally wouldn't buy in a development. Judging from what many people have told me, most developments are full of grumpy buggers that have nothing better to do than to find fault with each other. Being outside of a development, I'm free to do as I please, whereas in a developments, your hands are often tied. Many developments also seem to be crime hot spots in terms of burglaries.

I agree with others, in that you should rent first, even if only for three months or so. This would give you ample time to ride around looking for a place. Good luck

[cookmanchef]

I bought a house on SJ's first development and sold three years later, no complaints, I personally think 90% of builders/developers are honest but the 10% give them all a bad name.

Hear what your saying about living on a project Takiap but there are also people that will help you out when you need it, my next door neighbour on said development was a great guy that would do anything to help if needed.

With regard to the "crime hotspot" comment, of course you are correct but with the low price of security features these days this shouldn't be the case, CCTV, perimeter sensors etc should be part of the project spec now, most of the thieves are idiots and will not take tackle a place that is clearly well protected.