Renting or leasing a house, condo or apartment in Thailand usually
makes more economic sense than buying. The operative word here
is
usually. Besides preserving your capital and avoiding
questionable "ownership" issues, leasing avoids tying
you to a deteriorating or unpleasant neighborhood.
Before we go too far in this discussion, lets mention how relatively easy it is to find houses, condos and apartments to lease in places like Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai and the like. On the other hand, if your dead set on finding a condo in Nong Bua Lamphu, expect some challenges.
Housing in Thailand is market and speculation driven. If developers have no reason to suspect that a few hundred farangs will be moving into town, they won't be building western housing anytime soon. That's one reason why farangs who decide to
live in their Thai wife's village build their own house.
Apartments in Thailand vary from dingy concrete boxes with
no light and less personality to breathtaking domiciles you
never want to leave. And in many of them, you almost don't
need to leave. The arrangement that seems to make most sense
to the expatriate is a serviced apartment. Read more about
renting
an apartment in Thailand.
Condos are usually a step up from apartments, especially at the
low end. That being said, I have been offered a 28 sq m room
in which to live. And I thought my 40 sq m box was small. I
simply can't imagine living for months on end in a condo that
is smaller than my master bedroom was in my last home in the
U.S.A.
That brings up the point of establishing parameters for your
housing search. It's usually a good idea to know more about what
you
will not accept that about what you will
accept. Read more about
leasing a condo in Thailand.
Size matters when you go house hunting. Features matter a lot as well. And then there is that nasty issue called
location. If you're a house person, you already know that. If you don't think you will be happy living in an apartment or a condo, it's better not to even start down that path.
If you want to lease a house, the quality of the neighborhood
should be one of your first considerations. Is it clean? Is it
excessively noisy? More about
leasing a house in
Thailand.
