Yes, SJ, hopefully it has appreciated, but I'll have to find a buyer to prove that. And yes, of course you're right about the financial problems originating mostly in my own home country. When I made the decision to move here (2002) I knew the 44 baht to the dollar would't hold up but according to all the financial expert's articles I read back then it was expected to settle in the 36 range, but I guess they didn't count on a world wide recession (everywhere except Thailand it seems
) nor did they predict the housing bubble. When I bought the land (2003) the baht was still in the 42/43 range and when I began construction (2004) it was still around 41.5 so I never expected it to drop to 29 (and I doubt that is the bottom). I have nobody to blame really except myself and the people who directly influenced my thinking when I moved here
. I would just like to help others to keep from making the same mistakes. Like I've said before, it's different for you youngsters who have some earning years and potential left. For me, being retired on a fixed income it may have been a fatal mistake.
One of the mistakes I also made in not looking deep enough into my crystal ball was that I bought property and built a home for me to live in for the rest of my life, so I wasn't concerned about designing it for resale. If I had predicted the situation now, I would have done things differently with regards to the home and the garden to make it appeal to a bigger selection of prospective buyers. I've lost sales due to lack of a pool, maids quarters, Thai kitchen, and simply because the garden is too big. In most cases when I thought I had serious buyers except for one of those items I've offered a big enough discount on the spot for them to do what they want (like a million baht to build a pool), but those particular buyers didn't seem to want the hassle of construction or redesign.
Another problem that you need to be careful of if you are building in a relatively new area like I did is what happens in a few years around your property that you have no control over. I lost a couple of sales early on because of the mess the infrastructure outside my property has deteriorated into since I built, plus across the street is one of the worst builder's developments in Hua Hin. He ran out of money and now there are ruins of ghost homes that will never be finished as well as unmaintained property still held by him and construction rubble just left all along the road ruining the appearance of the entire neighborhood. Even if I maintain my home in perfect condition people don't like the road or what is across it, as well as the unmaintained mess (on all sides) around it. Having lived or owned property in four states back in the U.S. where there are strict zoning, construction, and litter laws, as well as ongoing infrastructure maintenance, I have to admit that these things didn't even occur to me as possibilities at the time. Maybe there is a good point to buying in an already built out established neighborhood to avoid such problems.
Also, when I came, there were not many builders in the area that we could find that were capable of building a home to the standards that we required. We interviewed many from local Thai builders to huge house building companies based in Bangkok and after making what I thought was an informed choice, I still went through two and a half years of the worst nightmarish hell of my life in actually getting the home constructed. I was on the building site every day and if I hadn't been it probably still wouldn't be finished...
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