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How Many "Residential Properties" Are Available In Bangkok?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing how many residential properties are presently available to those who are looking to purchase some sort of home here in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: PM allays foreign quota fears. I made a video contemporaneously with this one where we get into the issue of condos specifically and I will get into further analysis on that in a moment but I wanted to go ahead and get through this quotation, quoting directly: "According to a market survey carried out in the first quarter of this year by the Real Estate Information Centre (REIC), there are 213,429 residential properties available across greater Bangkok."
So a couple of things. You need to understand this, 'Residential Properties' and as I mentioned before, we discussed condos in another video. I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail, there's a lot of information and insight to be provided therein. But yeah condos, it is possible for a foreign national to own a condo with so-called Freehold title, Chanote title is the Thai word, we call it Fee Simple Absolute in the American Common Law vernacular, what you think of when you think of a title deed. You own that property outright, you have Freehold title if you will.
Now understand, other types of residential property such as land, you do not necessarily have those same privileges as a foreign national. Foreigners are allowed to own condos pursuant to the provisions of the Condominium Act of 1991 and so long as the condo in question is in compliance with that Act, it is possible for a foreigner to gain title over it. But bear in mind, foreign nationals are restricted from owning property in Thailand, real estate, land specifically. For this reason, I strongly caution people when reading articles like this to run out and think that they can buy residential property because as I have discussed in many other videos, Thai Law restricts foreigners from owning land. It's very, very clear on this and we have done videos in the past dealing with people who say "oh it's no big deal, you can use these structures and sort of get around it." Well that's colour of law nonsense and as we have discussed in other videos, even Law firms have been raided over that issue because Thai Authorities take land ownership by Thais very, very seriously and those who are viewed to be operating in such a way so as to circumvent those restrictions will see problems both in terms of possibly civil and criminal penalties.
So the thing to take away from this video is yes, there may be a great deal of residential property for sale here in Bangkok or Thailand in general, it should be noted that for foreigners, you need to be very careful with this. You need to contact a legal professional to gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed as well as to do the due diligence so you don't end up buying something that you cannot legally own here in the Kingdom of Thailand.