Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not a possible "travel bubble" between China and Thailand would have a positive impact on the condo market here in Thailand. Just as a preface to this video, I have been talking about "travel bubbles" for years now literally and I can't believe it has been this long. So we are going back, it is going to be about 2 years in March that this whole thing began and we were talking about "travel bubbles" a couple months after the promulgation of the Emergency Decree which basically locked down the country and then slowly reopened it and all the restrictions associated therewith but the thing to take away from this video is one we have been burned a lot even talking about "travel bubbles". They kept getting discussed in the press and then they just kind of never came to fruition. I thought this was noteworthy because it deals with both travel and the property market.

A recent article from the South China Morning Post, that is scmp.com, the article is titled: Reopening of Thailand's Borders to International tourists might help developers dispose of unsold Bangkok flats analysts say. Quoting directly and this excerpt I thought was most pertinent: "Thailand began allowing in fully and partially vaccinated foreigners from February 1. It has proposed a "travel bubble" with China which analysts said would help developers sell their inventory. China along with Malaysia was among the two largest sources of foreign tourists in Thailand before the Coronavirus pandemic and jointly accounting for a third of the 40 million international visitors coming to Thailand in 2019." So yeah it is interesting, Chinese buyers seem to make up a large percentage of condo owners here in Thailand.

For those who are unaware, there is a foreign quota of foreign ownership allowed for nationals of other countries besides Thailand to own their condominiums in freehold in Thailand. So it has got to be minority of the overall condominium complex so if there are 100 condominiums only 49 of them in a given complex can be sold to foreign nationals. 51 have to remain titled to Thai nationals. That said there is a major, it is a buyer's market most definitely. I hesitate to say there is a glut of condos but there are a lot of condos on the market here in Thailand specifically Bangkok, and Chinese buyers are oftentimes a major source of purchases for condos in Thailand. So it does stand to reason that the opening of a quote unquote "travel bubble" would probably lead to more Chinese coming to Thailand and therefore possibly although correlation is not causation, possibly those folks would then turn around and possibly become prospective buyers of condos here in Thailand.