EXCLUSIVE: After witnessing a country-wide dip in interest from Chinese buyers in the second half of the year, both Chaing Mai and Pattaya saw a significant rise in Thailand luxury property page views on Juwai.com, the top international property portal for Chinese property buyers and investors, during December 2015.
The property portal said, in its Thailand Luxury Real Estate Report, that it saw a strong seasonal dip in Chinese buying interest in luxury properties in Thailand during the second half of the year, but this was immediately followed by an increase in the number of Thailand property views during December.
It said the declines in all key markets, except Pattaya, corresponded roughly to Thailand’s rainy season. Despite the rainy season, Pattaya experienced very strong growth in buyer interest, with online property views on Juwai.com rising almost seven-fold.
Charles Pittar, Chief Executive Officer of Juwai.com, told Dot Property Group: “During the second half of the year, most Chinese inquiries came from investor-minded buyers. Their top priorities were return on investment, ease of management, quality of facilities and neighbourhood.
“Juwai.com’s data for US-million-dollar-plus property from the second half of 2015 showed a slowdown during the rainy season, which was most pronounced in Phuket. This highlights the link between Chinese tourism and international property buying.
“Because of the limited amount of time they have for international travel, Chinese buyers often combine property buying with overseas tourism and shopping.
“Pattaya, Bangkok and Chiang Mai all saw relatively stable or growing interest throughout the second half of the year. Both Pattaya and Chiang Mai had an upward bump in December after the rainy season and as the high-season emerged.
“Preliminary data from January suggests that views surged in the first month of 2016. We’ll have to wait until January data is fully available for a precise count on that,” he added.
Pittar confirmed that Thailand is a very attractive market due to its low entry price, high quality construction, proximity to China and reasonable investment outlook.
He said: “It’s still a relative unknown for most Chinese investors, but that is changing. Our forecast for 2016 is for significant year-on-year, US$1-million-plus inquiry growth in the first six months of the year.”
Agent View
Anchalika Wongwaiwisarn (pictured) is Managing Director of Ancha Property with offices in Shanghai and Bangkok.
She told Dot Property Group: “We saw a drop of interest in August, September and October, with the seasonal factor being most important and the bombing in Thailand being second.
“Chinese people book a trip and then look online for real estate. Due to the rainy season, they went to Europe at that time of year.
“A lot of Chinese want to buy property in Thailand due to the proximity. During 2016, interest from mainland China is only going to go up. I see more Chinese buying this year, with Chiang Mai leading. Thai political problems won’t affect Chinese real estate interest.
“Chiang Mai is a very popular destination and is the focus of most of our inquiries. It is known as an affordable city, which explains why you don’t see as much high-priced interest. Most inventory there is budget and it attracts retirees, and in that sense it’s not like Phuket and Bangkok.
“Phuket is more like a lifestyle investment, with less expectation of capital gain compared to Bangkok. They can own property by the beach and put that into a rental program, managed by a very nice hotel chain, and they can stay 60 days a year and they don’t need to manage it.
“Thailand property investment is very new for Chinese. It is not as popular as the Unted States or Australia. We have to educate a lot of our clients. We invest time and money in bringing in new investors; people who had no interest in investing there before.”
Adam Sutcliffe, Managing Director of Dot Property Group (Thailand), said: “The huge spike in interest in Pattaya properties will be exciting news for real estate agents and developers in the city, and should be something they act on.
“Clearly here, and also in Chiang Mai, there are potential sales to Chinese buyers by proactive agents and developers.”
About the above data
The data team at Juwai.com issued this report to measure the change in Chinese buyer interest in key Thai destinations over the second half of 2015. They did so by tracking buyers’ online property-hunting activity on Juwai.com, in particular real estate listing page views. The data in this report is indexed with July 2015 equal to 100. An index of greater than 100 means greater property buying activity than in July. An index of less than 100 means less property buying activity than in July.
