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Are Thai Condos a Good Investment?

Transcript of the above video:

I get this question a lot so I decided to go ahead and do a video on it but I am going to go ahead and say what I usually say which is I am not someone to ask about investments or investment advisory. In fact, sometimes legal advisory, legal issues kind of blead over into business advisory. I am even uncomfortable often times doing that and I try to make it clear when we are talking in a business context. Well I am not uncomfortable doing it, we talk about business matters all the time. What I am uncomfortable doing is people sometimes think that you are talking in a legal context when you are actually talking in a business context so I always try to be clear especially when I am talking to clients, “look I am wearing my business hat versus my legal hat”. 

Investment is what you make of it in a sense. A good investment is in the eye of the beholder. Now, some issues associated with buying Thai condos as an investment, there are the usual issues. One, depending on the market, the market maybe somewhat saturated in terms of maybe a glut, a lot of units on the market so there is not a lot of scarcity. Although that said, certain condos can have a certain amount of value just based on their location and things. One of the big ones is, one thing I have noticed over the years that makes the difference between a sort of "good" investment in the sense that it looked like it worked out from my perspective when I have seen clients doing transfers of these condos and things; How good is the juristic person? Are they staying on top of maintaining the overall facility? On top of that, do you have a lot of active owners of the condo? Are there a lot of people living there? That may be important from the standpoint of common area fees. Are there enough common area fees coming in so that the overall facility can sustain itself in a manner that is commensurate with smooth operations?

So from the standpoint of a good investment I think the main question to be asked, or the main thing to look at first and foremost is the Juristic Person. Are they taking good care of the place? Secondly does it appear and sometimes that may be all you can ascertain is just the appearance, but does it seem as though the condo is active; it is well populated; there are a number of people living in it and presumably then paying their common area fees for the upkeep of the overall facility.