Cost of living

[Pleng]

Hi guys, quick question to get an idea of the actual cost of renting a property in Hua Hin, ie Rent and running costs.

I am aware of what sort of properties can be found and what the monthly rentals are but what of the additional costs? Do tenants have to pay any form of council tax, for instance?

The property I have in mind is a 1 bedroom, 2-story air conditioned terrace (living room downstairs, bedroom and bathroom upstairs) which will cost me 10,000bt per month to rent. What would you expect the average electricity bills to be for such a property? I can probably live without cable TV to be honest (though my girlfriend might feel differently!) bast a fast, reliable internet connection is important, so how much would I expect to pay for that?

In addition to Rent, (council taxes?), Electricity and Internet... is there anything else I've missed?

Thanks for your time!

[Lev]

You'll find a lot of the answers to this, and many more questions, on this informative website: http://www.expathuahin.com/

[Spitfire]

No such thing as a fast, reliable internet service here. Hopefully they will belatedly get 3 or 4 G sometime, but as of now then it's just the 6-10 mb LAN line (if you're lucky) but don't get too excited as it depends on who you're sharing that bandwidth with, which will probably be quite a lot of others, not to mention it can really slow when it gets to 'Counter Strike' or 'Ragnarok' time after school.

"Council tax", , no, don't worry about that. Tax in general, apart from VAT (7%), is not paid by most as the main body of Thais are either too rich or too poor to pay it as they operate in the informal economy, or simply just don't care as it's fairly easy to dodge, I probably pay more income tax than most Thais do.

Electricity is basically down to how much you use the air-con, but even if you use it every night to help you sleep you might only be spending 1500-2000 baht max on electricity. When you look around in the town house before you rent it, have a look at the air-con unit to try to find one of those economy stickers with a big 5 in the middle of it on it, if it has one then you should be OK.....

If your Mrs wants UBC then it's not a huge drama and the 'gold' package is about 1600 baht a month and you get pretty much everything apart from 'Star World' and a couple of other channels.

Living here in general is still fairly inexpensive compared to what we are used to from where we have come from. It's not the deal it once was in LOS due to the changed exchange rate but it's still OK, better than being in most other places though. If you can sail though the current storm and 'sit tight' then maybe in a few years the exchange rate will become more favourable for us......well.....that's what most of us are hoping I reckon.

[Pleng]

Thanks for the link and the info. I'm not worried about mobile internet. A 6Mb line would be speed aplenty, but reliability is a bit of a concern. What about dedicated leased lines? Does anybody know if these are available?

[buksida]

What about dedicated leased lines? Does anybody know if these are available?

Yep, at 20k++ per month you can just about get a 1024Kb leased line in HH. 30k++ will get you a 2Mb fibre cable.

Don't even think about talking to 3BB or TOT if you want a business (read: reliable) connection. try KSC Bangkok or True.

[dotx]

In the 9 months I've lived here, my internet has been out maybe 4-5 times. One time it was out for a whole weekend but the other times it was at most an hour, usually 10-15 minutes. I wouldn't worry too much about it. The speed is ok, I guess. I can watch movies online with no problems.

As for electricity, I run the AC 24/7. In the living room during the day, in the bedroom at night. My bill is around 3000 baht a month. At this time of the year, I can't imagine turning it off.

[sargeant]

Not going into details but a TWO bedroomed terrace/Town house should even with AC not cost much more than 5,000Bt a month unfurnished

[Aussie_Al]

Those been here longer than me prob know better.

But I am paying just a little more a month, for a furnished 3 bedroom place, in a gated estate, 24/7 security etc.
Pool like 40 meters from my door.

And on top of rent paying like 1000 THB a month for estate services, security, rubbish and all the rest.

Still think it a good deal for me....

Others about right on what elec./internet etc. costs

[dotx]

Renting unfurnished is probably too complicated for most of us. Not only do you have to buy stuff that way, but also deal with bringing it home, installing (in the case of washing machine, for example), etc. Renting furnished just makes things a lot easier.

Or maybe I"m just lazy.

[sargeant]

In the OP it was a ONE bed Terrace/townhouse

I was giving the price for a TWO bed similar

IMHO 10,000 a month would require a pretty large ammount of high/high tech quality furniture
In my experience flat screen TVs & washing machines are not normally part of a lets itinery

[STEVE G]

It can also depend a lot on location, as is the case anywhere. If you're near to the city centre, 10,000bt would be pretty cheap.

[dotx]

Are washing machines not a common thing in rental houses? I've lived in 4 different houses since I got here (hopefully will stay in the present one for a long time) and all had washing machines, microwave, TV, AC, other kitchen appliances, all furniture... To me those seem to be the norm in most rental houses. Then again, I've never paid less than 15,000 in rent, so maybe I'm looking at a different type of houses.

[Pleng]

OK Thanks to everybody for all your responses.

Re the accommodation yes it's furnished - I wouldn't consider the hassle of an unfurnished property, the location is about half way between Khao Takiab bay and Khao Takiab village so pretty much within walking distance of both. The beedroom and living room are both very spacious so I think it's a pretty good deal.

Of course, the intrenet being a deciding factor may mean that staying in the Khao Takiab area isn't a realistic option? Does anybody have any opinions on that? The price of a leased line is just a little too high, so I'd be relying on a small office style package. Does anybody have any experience of internet speeds & reliability in this area? I essentially need to be able to talk over a VoIP line and run a log-me-in session at the same time.

[buksida]

Here is a rough guide to renting: http://www.expathuahin.com/renting-huahin.php
I'd be very surprised if you can get anything for 5k a month in Hua Hin (aside from a shed that is).

The price of a leased line is just a little too high, so I'd be relying on a small office style package. Does anybody have any experience of internet speeds & reliability in this area? I essentially need to be able to talk over a VoIP line and run a log-me-in session at the same time.

I use Teamviewer for remote access on a basic package from 3BB - it works well enough however full internet reliability is not something you can get in Thailand (even with leased lines). The connection will drop off from time to time and will get over loaded and slow down during peak times (15.30 to 17.00). This is unavoidable wherever you are due to ancient and badly maintained infrastructure and massive over-subscription of packages, you just have to live with it if you want to operate here. Many will come on here and say that their connection is great but it is unlikely that they're working on the machine solidly for 14 hours a day so won't see its problems - for sending the odd email to mum, reading the paper, and watching the occasional video basic packages in Hua Hin are fine.

[jimmy40]

I use tot for the the phone and cat for net, in the last year been down 4 times, speed is fairly slow sometimes but today i just pinged it at 1.62 mbps down and 0.27 up. i have a pool and 5 aircons 2 run all the time my bill is around 4000 baht a month, water is about 100 baht a month. hope that helps cheers