Transcript of the above video: 

By the way, I have had a few people who have contacted us recently and I've talked to in client consultations and things, and they immediately bring up the fact that - I don't really think of it because I use the intro as sort of my way of sort of just rolling into sort of; all these videos are extemporaneously made. I just make them. But I haven't really noticed that yeah there's a lot of them and they all begin with the same intro. So tip of the hat to you folks. I appreciate you wading through my usual intro but that's probably never going to change because that's my best intro I could come up with and it's sort of what I roll into this stuff with. 

This video is going to be a bit of a long analysis regarding this recently announced sort of Thai condo-for-Visa sort of scheme, and I have gotten into analysis on this in the past. I have done videos on the old O Visa that was associated with condo ownership, so I'll get into that further. Real quick before we get in, because I haven't done this much lately, I need to go ahead and plug Pancake Palace. My better half and I have set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. We would very much appreciate if you get anything out of these videos, anything out of my presence on social media, whatever, if you come down to Pancake Palace, you'll be helping us out. Again, we've got great food: American Diner style food, breakfast anytime including as noted in the name, pancakes. We have got those, but we've also got buffalo wings, cheeseburgers, hamburgers; we've got chilli dogs, we've got tacos now. We've also got Coke in glass bottles, grilled cheese sandwiches as well so if you're interested in some American diner style food, please feel free to come on down; links are in the description below, we would love to see you. 

But let's jump into this because this is a pretty big deal in terms of, it's an immigration development. I've been following it since it came about back in like November. There is blowback and pushback on this from the Thai public as I'll get into here. It seems pretty likely that there could be some, well let's just say this may not play out the way folks think. That said, I initially started thinking of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: New One Year Visa for condo owners and high-end property renters confirmed in Phuket by Immigration. Now, let's talk about this first of all, because Thai Examiner, and I urge those to go over and check out their site, they go into an exhaustive analysis, but they keep pointing out that this is Phuket Immigration, and I think that's important as well. Phuket Immigration seems to be the impetus behind all of this, and as we have discussed in other videos, different provincial Immigration Offices can do things differently from an administrative standpoint, and I guess you could argue that certain types of visas and extensions associated therewith are an administrative function. My first question on all of this, and I guess I should preface this video by just saying we really need a new Immigration Act in Thailand. This is really getting kind of out of hand in my opinion, where like all these different folks are just saying well, we could issue this visa and that Visa, blah, blah, blah. And I do get it. There is discretion under ministerial regulatory power to do different things, but again what is this Visa created by? And again it seems to have something to do - we talked about the Long-Stay Visa going back into COVID. That was another one of these similar to Thailand Privilege that is like a private company that if you are dealing with them, you can sort of get a Visa out of the deal. Here's the issue I have with that. As we're seeing what the Elite Visa or the Privilege Visa, all kinds of fundamental terms of that seem to be changing on an almost daily basis right now. These things sort of fall in and out of favour, and meanwhile, the foreigners are just trying to figure out a visa to stay here. They're trying to gain certainty and by just having all of this, "well we're doing it like this, and we're doing it like that", these sort of one-offs and ad hoc setups, it's not real conducive to coherent policy. It's also not very convictive to in my opinion, a well-run immigration apparatus, because again people don't exactly know what they're getting, and if it will always be there. Look there used to be an O Visa purely associated with owning a condo in Thailand; they phased it out. I remember dealing with a family, they were English, going back years ago. One of them was a good friend of mine and he had a sister that had bought a condo on the premise that she would also continue to get this visa, and I mean by the end and eventually they moved for a variety of different reasons - it wasn't fundamentally about the Visa - but I expect the hassles associated with the fading away of that Visa didn't really help. But yeah, long story short, we've seen this kind of scheme before, and we have seen it actually phased out affirmatively. So that would be my first preface with all of this talk about "oh condos, and visas and they're somehow interlinked" we've seen it before. They can be "dis-linked" - let's put it that way. 

That said, quoting directly: "Phuket launches new property visa for foreign buyers and renters" - and again, Thai Examiner goes out of its way to note that this is Phuket, which my first question is is Phuket now offering totally separate types of visas from the rest of the country? Is this a nationwide scheme? Is it just something they came up with provincially? Quoting further: "But faces fierce backlash, political tension and enforcement fears as officials push to revive a weak property market amid rising foreign demand and local concerns." Yeah okay. I get that they are trying to create incentives for people to come and buy property. This was done with the Elite Visa some years back; property sellers. They kind of made it vague but basically what it amounted to was if you bought the property they would take a portion of your fee, the money paid for whatever property, and they would basically go and pay for you to get an Elite Visa. I am not saying that that's exactly what's happening here. The point I'm trying to make is; they've used immigration sort of incentives in the past to spur on the property market; that part of it I get. The problem with it is as people, as locals and things are saying, at the end of the day, one, this presumption that Thailand should effectively sell itself out to foreigners, I have got a problem with that on a fundamental level. I know I'm a foreigner here; I know I'm foreign born, I became Thai and I'm not saying I have any problem with foreigners per se. But I do get what these locals are saying where they're saying, "hey, where are all these people coming from? What are they going to be doing here? Why are they here? I mean the weird thing about globalism in the modern era is that they have gotten people away from thinking commonsensically about things like invasion. I mean literally, and I'm not saying that this is causing an invasion, don't get me wrong. But the people that are concerned about this, these aren't luddites who just have a problem with progress or something like that. No they have legitimate concerns about their own communities, because they want to keep them their own Thai communities. I completely understand the argument. 

That said, quoting further: "A top Immigration Bureau Officer in Phuket on Tuesday confirmed that the one-year visa scheme for the purchase and rental of certain property on the island is now operational. The scheme includes rules and screening requirements but remains straightforward. Anyone purchasing a condominium and securing ownership can apply for a renewable one-year Visa once the property exceeds 3 million Baht. Likewise, renting a condo or house for over 85,000 baht per month offers the same privilege." And again this brings it, they're saying this in Phuket. Is this nationwide or is it just in Phuket? Quoting further: "Provided rent is prepaid and all agreements comply with the law. The Visa is being treated as a sandbox test in Phuket and may help address Thailand's growing glut of unsold properties and stagnant prices in parts of the market." So there we go. It is like a Phuket sandbox thing. We called it Devil's Island during COVID, or at least we in the office, because that was how people would get into Thailand. They would be able to not be immediately quarantined, but they couldn't leave Phuket. They have done some things in Phuket where again, they kind of sandbox it. That seems to be what is happening here. Then that begs the question of what happens if somebody's down there and they move, for example? Does the Visa go with them? What if they buy a condo elsewhere and move there? Hard to say. I know that's a highly attenuated sort of hypothetical; I'm not doing it to just be Mr. Contrarian. It's more to the question of again, what are we doing here is basically what I'm saying. 

 

That said, moving over to the print edition of Bangkok Post, you can probably find this on bangkokpost.com as well, but over here in the print edition, we will go ahead and throw this up on screen. Phuket explains long-stay visa for condo buyers, renters. Quoting directly: "Immigration authorities and private sector representatives yesterday issued clarification about a long-stay Visa programme for foreign real estate investors, which aims to attract high-potential buyers and support economic activity in the property sector. The briefing followed the introduction of a one-year visa for foreigners who purchase condominiums valued at no less than 3 million Baht or rent houses at a minimum of 85,000 Baht per month." First of all let me say, on one level, I like the proactive thinking on this, and I've been critical of the DTV in the past because I failed to see the connection, where Thailand's really getting a benefit. The thing with this is we can clearly see that yes, the property market will directly benefit off of this, because by creating these visas, it's likely to create more demand in condos. So from that standpoint, I would say "hey at least it's straightforward from there." That said, quoting further, we will throw this back on the screen: "The first option requires purchasing a condominium unit with a value not less than 3 million baht, supported by a valid sales contract and ownership documentation. The second option allows for the leasing of a condominium or house at a monthly rate of 85,000 baht, with advance payments required." And then there is this third option that they get into, and again it is sort of vague. I'm not even going to quote any further because I think the gist of this is look, you're either going to buy one or you're going to rent one. It's also kind of vague as to whether or not this is nationwide. So I'm going to kind of leave trying to find the fine points of this until later. 

That said, the person that put me onto the Thai Examiner article actually wrote me an email, and every once in a while, this person writes me emails and I haven't actually mentioned one of this person's email, so I'll go ahead and mention them now. Quoting directly: "In this video there is a discussion about this sandbox experiment. The sand is loose I guess. Among other doubtful moves it appears to state that there will be authorized agents to handle these condominiums. I guess those units will suddenly increase in price." Well if all the requirement is that it be over a certain amount and you show ownership documentation, I don't see why any special agents would be required associated with that. I mean unless we're now sort of showing preferential treatment to certain real estate as opposed to other real estate; now it would make sense to me. It's like okay, look you've got your land office documentation showing the purchase of the land, the price of the purchase, as well as your Chanote. Okay, that's your documentation associated with your Visa. Now it has to be adjudicated by an Immigration Officer, but I don't really see why we would need authorized agents to deal with that. That said, quoting further: "Many real estate agencies are run by foreigners. Yes, brokerage and land is off limits for foreigners, but who cares?" Well people do care, and by the way they do go after that, so if you are a foreigner in that business be careful. That said, quoting further: "that are proficient in one language or the other to address one or other tourist segments. Instead of cleaning up this mess of various visas, this just adds another avenue where the discretion of the immigration officer comes into play. How these low-income foreigners, many 15-20 years away from retirement, are then going to live here and/or support a Thai wife is anybody's guess." 

Yeah, look and again I'm not going to continue reading; tip of the half of that person, because yeah I can get into the kind of hypercritical to the almost point of cynicism regarding analysis of this whole situation. Long story short, I'm pretty well in favour of this but I'm really hopeful we're not going to end up with just a bunch of weird, it's sort of all occurring in this niche, where again it's only in Phuket; is it nationwide? If it's only in Phuket as a sandbox to test it out okay, fair enough, but again if it's just going to be another one of these things where it's another one of these sort of sideline visas that doesn't make any sense in the overall rubric of Immigration policy and law here in Thailand, I think as this person points out, it's just going to add more problems. So my hope is that this works out for everyone, but I'm maybe tainted by recent experience of seeing these Visa sort of pop up out of nowhere and then it's just causing more confusion.

So the thing to take away from this video is at the end of the day you know yeah, they're coming up with this Visa; I'm diving as deeply as I can into it for the moment; I'm getting into it in another video talking about the war and how that may impact condos as well. But long story short, I am cautiously optimistic about the plan for long-stay visas and condo ownership. Now here's the thing though. I think the devil is going to be in the details, so figuring out what condos are going to meet the requirements and under what circumstances and where, again it's all very vague. Is this nationwide? Is this only in one place? If it is only in one place, how does that work? Meanwhile, we don't exactly know the exact parameters associated with all of this. If I was somebody that was looking into this, and if I was younger, if I was in my first 10 years out there in Thailand and there had been an ability to buy a condo and get a Visa, I probably would have availed myself of that. So this is definitely something to be looking into if you're an expat out here. That said, as previously mentioned, the devil is in the details. Probably not a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight guidance into how best to proceed.