Thai properties high on Chinese tourists’ Lunar New Year holiday shopping lists
Thailand is now the third most popular property market for Chinese, helped by low prices and high rental yields
The Lunar New Year is a boon for Thai property developers and agents as China’s affluent middle classes head south and combine their holidays with shopping for housing.
The number of enquiries in China about Thai property listings in January was close to the record set a year ago, according to Juwai.com, a Chinese international property portal, and the country jumped to No 3 on Juwai’s ranking of popularity for Chinese investors in 2017, behind the US and Australia, from sixth place in 2016.
Xiao Jing, a 33-year-old Shanghai nurse, is one enthusiast. After frequent trips to Thailand since 2016, she settled on a 50 square metre, one-bedroom condominium in central Bangkok for 1.37 million yuan (US$220,000). She said she could live in the property when she travelled to Thailand and rent it out when she was not there.
“The same condo in a similar prime location in Shanghai would cost more than 5 million yuan, and with all kinds of purchase eligibility restrictions. The contrast is so stark,” said Xiao, who plans to live permanently in Thailand after retirement.
Chinese buyers like Xiao are pushing a cascade of money into the Thai property sector. While there is no solid nationwide investment data, some individual cases show how hot the market has become.
Sansiri Pcl, one of the largest developers in Thailand, saw its sales to Chinese buyers rise 30 per cent in 2017 to around HK$820 million (US$104.8 million) and is targeting sales of HK$1.4 billion for 2018. In 2016 the company set a HK$236 million sales target for mainland China, which was considered “very ambitious” at the time.