Resorts, luxury condos still holding their own 
Resorts, luxury condos still holding their own
Amid the
current political turmoil, most of the resort properties and high-end
condominiums in Bangkok are still doing well depending on their
location, design and price point.
Robert Collins, managing
director of the property agency Savills Thailand, said that as tourism
performance remained very positive, this translated into a positive
resort market.
"Thailand remains the holiday destination for the
region, particularly for Singapore and Hong Kong, where the
concentration of money is. Thailand\'s resort destinations are a
short-haul flight," he said.
The booming tourism industry has
led to greater demand for condominiums and villas because not everybody
wants to spend their holiday in a hotel room, especially families with
children.
"We certainly see that resort locations in general are
really unaffected by any political environment, be it positive or
negative," said Mr Collins. "It has very limited effect. It\'s more in
terms of international buying. The state of the economic markets in
Hong Kong and Singapore will have greater short-term impact.
"The
long-term buying trends in Europe remain quite robust because they tend
to be an older demographic. It\'s not impulse buying. These are
long-haul visitors that have planned for this type of investment."
Also,
despite the fresh round of demonstrations in Bangkok, Mr Collins does
not expect any decline in the values of premium grade-A condominiums
over the next 18 months, irrespective of the wider economic or
political situation in the short term.
Typically, he said,
property prices in Bangkok were very slow to adjust to any downward
pressure and in fact his company was seeing the opposite, with upward
pressure evident.
"There is immense private wealth
internationally that wasn\'t there to the same extent after 1997-98 _
privately held money that is not immune to oil prices and food prices
but is sitting there waiting to be invested. Those types of investors
are quite keen to invest in specific types of premium-grade property in
emerging markets and Thailand is on the radar for a lot of those buyers
and they are supporting these prices."
Source: http://www.thailand-property-guide.com/?p=news/article&NewsID=787
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