Foreigners love condos in Thailand and Malaysia

Within this year itself, I think I visited Bangkok 4 times. Except for the jam that never seem to end, I love Bangkok. I love the friendly people, the delicious street food and the good service in hotels. I wanted to bring my family for a visit too, perhaps next year. Every time I pass by any high-rise project, I would ask my colleague about the price. They are usually pretty attractively priced (though not that big in size, usually smaller than 1,000 sq ft) and most of the time, quite close to the BTS which meant walking is possible for connectivity. Guess what, the Chinese loves Bangkok too. Perhaps even more than me because they are investing into Bangkok to complement the domestic demand which has weakened recently. In fact, I hope that they have an election as soon as possible. A good prime minister would help tremendously even if they have a good Central Bank Governor currently. 
In a report by CBRE Research Thailand published in Bangkok Post, it says that foreigners love condos. (Me too. Haha) According to China’s top search engine and web portal Baidu, the number one search for real estate investment in 2016 by Chinese was Malaysia, followed by Thailand. First and second respectively for South East Asia. In fact according to the site, 50 percent of the total Chinese capital invested in Thailand was for real estate investment. (Unfortunately, we do not have their research for Malaysia CBRE Malaysia…. ). It says that Malaysia’s attraction was due to the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) scheme. The top two places where the foreigners love to buy in Malaysia are Kuala Lumpur and Penang. (I wonder why was JB / Iskandar not mentioned despite some scary article about Chinese investments in Iskandar. Anyway, even Singapore was not mentioned. Perhaps number 3?)
In terms of Thailand, the top two places would be Bangkok and Phuket. (Hey, I wrote about this before when I visited Phuket not too long ago too). Yeah, just like the foreign buyers, I love Phuket too. As for buying a property, if I were to choose, then it’sBangkok first lah)  The reason for both Penang and Phuket seems to be for holiday homes. The report concluded by saying that attracting the Chinese to buy is not that easy anymore because of the stricter capital outflow controls from the Chinese government. By the way, always do note that foreigners could only buy up to 49 percent of space in any condo project. I wonder what happens if there are some foreigners who exceed this 49 percent. If there are any Thailand real estate experts reading this, please do advise yeah. Of course I am biased towards Malaysia but I think the potential is definitely higher for KL because the cost of doing business remains affordable and the quality of workforce due to proficiency in many languages remain an advantage over most other nations. Plus, we have the High Speed Rail and the feverish construction of MRT Line 2 today. Cheers.
written on 28 Sept 2017
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