Admittedly, it hasn’t been an easy year for Thai real estate. But by exercising a little due diligence, potential buyers can still see the call signs of projects that are worth investing in. One company that is keeping to its schedule and sailing full steam ahead is Kingdom Property — with its flagship condominium venture, Southpoint, in Pratumnak, Pattaya.
In October, a topping-off ceremony took place at Southpoint, as construction work on the 30-storey Residence tower was completed. Celebrations included a
ceremony with Nigel Cornick, Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom Property, present, among other key staff. Meanwhile, down below on the 15th floor, mechanical and electrical work continued apace to keep the project on track for completion in the summer of 2015.
As for his broad market outlook, Mr. Cornick said, “I believe things are a lot better than this time last year when we were entering the phase of political uncertainly, so we have come a long way since then and I think that given time, the government will continue to push things forward.”
The market has taken a substantial shift in the last year, and so has the demographic. Mr. Cornick raised an important factor. “If you look at Bangkok, projects are selling out on launch and there’s a fair number of Singaporeans, Hong Kong and Chinese buying into those projects, but here, it is not quite the same. The worry for me is the volume of buyers not being able to soak up the supply in Pattaya, which is why we try to do something a bit different and with a different location.”
For Southpoint, the key market focus is more on Thai buyers, as opposed to foreign buyers. “This is because we will be finished by the middle of next year, which means customers will be able to get their bank financing, and for Thais, they don’t necessarily have to put a lot of equity into it, and I think for a weekend retreat, holidays and investment, our product is very well located,” explained Mr. Cornick. However, it is a wait-and-see situation with foreign, especially Russian and Chinese, investors.
