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Thursday 3 December 2009

Koh Samui Real Estate Blog

The long awaited improvements to Samui roads have at last started with tarmac being laid on the ring road starting just to the north of Hua Thanon and at the time of writing this Newsletter now going through Lamai. Much needed improvements to the drainage system are also in progress with the stretch of the ring road from Bangkok Hospital to just south of our office complete and also the section which always floods badly by the bridge next to the PTT Petrol Station also finished.

In the main section of the Newsletter you will find an article referring to the status of Koh Samui and the possibility of it becoming a special economic zone such as Pattaya and Bangkok. Samui was upgraded to a Town Municipality recently and it was never going to achieve City status as there was no way it could meet the criteria on population density. The status of Samui has always been a contentious issue with Surat Thani Province due to the revenue it produces, very little of which was retained by the island and people here could see the money being spent on roads on the mainland but nothing here. It always seemed to me that the way forward was through the special economic zone option and I commented on this in the August 2007 Newsletter. The new Town status has already produced results in greater funding for infrastructure improvements as mentioned above and becoming a special economic zone would give greater control on island finances.

I have always had an issue with the statistics provided by the Tourist Authority of Thailand. Firstly they are always so far out of date as to be nearly useless and there is no indication on how they are compiled. The latest set of figures which relate to Koh Samui are for the period April to June 2008. Every month I see information on arrivals in Hong Kong and Singapore for the previous month and from that it is possible to see the trend in tourism and travel. Statistics that are eighteen months old are of marginal use at best and from my own past experience of these not very accurate. Therefore be wary of any one quoting TAT statistics to you – they will be old and probably inaccurate.

I had further confirmation recently that Marriott have plans to develop another hotel on the island but that has been deferred until 2011.

And property prices here continue to fall! If you check our web site and look at the Hot Press Offers you will see a great number of properties with prices that have been reduced from between 15% and 50% with an average reduction this month of 32%. These reductions are now beginning to produce sales and, although still not many, there are a few more buyers around than there were a few weeks ago. NEW REDUCTIONS EVERY MONTH!
See in particular the following properties – CTRL + click to follow the link:

4 bedroom house in Bangrak with private walled garden and pool. Originally Baht 10.9m.
Now available at Baht 8.5 million.


2 bedroom Leasehold town house in Plai Laem – originally Baht 2.75 million.
Now available at Baht 2.1million.


3 bedroom house in Choengmon with pool – originally Baht 6.6 million.
Now available at Baht 3.9 million.


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