As a foreigner, if you are looking to buy a property in Thailand the most straightforward way for you to do so is to buy a condo. While there are several laws set up preventing foreigners from buying land, buying a condo is completely legal and is encouraged by the simple process behind it.
All over Thailand and in Bangkok especially, there are literally dozens of new condominium developments going up every day, facing you as the consumer with so many options you may spend a very long time looking through so many options trying to find the perfect unit.
Your search doesn’t have to end though when you’ve looked at all of the available turn-key apartments. You also have the option of buying a unit (or many) pre-sale, and there are several advantages to this.
Depending on how much time you have and what your long-term investment strategy is for buying a condo (e.g. living in it yourself or renting it out), you may want to consider buying a condominium that’s not complete yet.
Here are some reasons why buying a pre-sale condo could benefit you:
Lower Net Cost
One of the biggest advantages of buying a condominium pre-sale is that you can save a lot of money. Prices rise as the development is built, and as soon as the condominium is developed and becomes ready to move in unit sales will hit their premium. Buying in the pre-sale phase will allow you to take advantage of all the juicy promotions that developers are dangling to ensure that the condo will fill up as soon as possible.
If you are someone who is looking to buy many units at once to become a landlord, it is assumed that you are willing to commit to this lifestyle and lucrative opportunity for many years. You will save a very sizable amount of money if you can be patient and wait for the building to be completed, rather than try to buy a whole bunch of units when the building is already complete. There may be a delay in how fast you can pay off the initial investment with pre-sale, but once you start renting the units out to tenants the return will exponentially increase.
Choice
If you are serious about buying a condominium to live in but haven’t come across the absolutely perfect unit yet, you will love the flexibility that a pre-sale condo will offer you. As the buyer, you can customize it as you go to make the condo fit your tastes perfectly. There will be much less of those “I would love it, if it weren’t for that terrible tile in the bathroom” kinds of moments. If you want the floor to be hardwood instead of tile, this is you opportunity to say something and get it looking right the first time around.
Payments
Buying a condo during the presale period is not only affordable, but also will require less cash up front. Usually developers are very eager to get the sales signed off in this stage thus will allow you to stagger payments instead of paying for the entire thing in one lump sum (which is necessary to do when you buy a competed project).
Low Maintenance 
Just like buying a car, buying a condo that’s not brand new might leave you vulnerable to maintenance work in the near future. Even if the condo has never been lived in, but the building has been in use you still are working with older technologies, older infrastructure, has been exposed to extreme weather, etc. A pre-sale condo maximizes the time you don’t have to think about maintenance work, allowing you to get used to being a resident or land-lord for this particular property, stress-free.
There are many condos available in the pre-sale stage all over Thailand. For a sampling of some very promising new developments, check out the New Homes page on Thailand-Property.com.
