Is Ari the new Thong Lor?

Distinctly different for sure, but there are some undeniable similarities in that some of the nearby malls, restaurants, super-markets and such like are very similar to those found in Sukhumvit Soi 55, right in the heart of Thong Lor.

Fuji, Tops Gourmet, brand name hospitals and private clinics, private bistro’s, café and whatnot, Ari has it seems all of the exact same ingredients and perhaps more as its illustrious cousin. Yet you can still come around here and rent a condo for a substantially lower price.

Take this 2 bed, 2 bath, executive condo, found very close to BTS Sanam Pao. It maybe a little older than a new Noble or Sansiri condo but it offers great quality of life within a short hop to anyone of the aforementioned amenities whilst also offering 78sqm of living space, nice pool and gym, all in a nice green and quiet setting.

How much would pay for such a Bangkok Condo rental? Normally if in Thong Lor I suspect around 30-35K per month, yet this owner is offering this property out at just 22K a month for long term tenants. So check out what it is you are looking for and need and where you want to be nearby to and you may just find you can slot yourself in to this condo rental nicely, s save yourself quite a few Baht I the process.

The future of the Bangkok Condo Rental market

I have been living and working in Thailand since 1998, many of those years working in the Bangkok condo rental and sales market for a great many of them. In those years I have seen a very clear downturn in rental values, or perhaps I should say in market demographics. No longer are the mid-range properties renting as they used to be. But why?

Ten years ago when I moved back to Bangkok after some time away, things had not changed much in the condo rental & sales market. Overseas buyers were still buying condos and renting them out and the norm of this was that they were buying condos for between 6 - 9 million Baht and then renting them at 35-50K per month. These were fairly easy to rent out back then as there was still a very healthy number of expats in well paid employment positions.

Today however there are less and less expats here in those high paid positions. As Thailand has developed, more and more Thai people are able to do the jobs themselves now, and normally they will be on lower salaries than the expats used to be. This of course means the market place of people looking to rent a condo for 35-50K a month has shrunk significantly.

In the more recent years this has shrunk again and now it is much less common to find many people looking over even 25K a month at all. This is not going to change any time soon, indeed it may never change as more and more Thai people become the rental clients for agents with budgets of between 6 and 15K a month in general. There are some occasions where people are indeed looking up to 25K as a working couple or family, but again this is becoming less and less common.

So looking to the future, this is going to be a continuing trend and until the average wage here reaches the needed levels, many of those 35-50K a month executive condos will remain empty or very hard to rent at best. As Bangkok continues to grow, as slowly as it is, into more and more significant business hub in SE Asia, the more and more Thai people will leave the countryside and move to city jobs.

With this influx of new clients comes a new influx of tenants to let your property to. But those clients will be the lower paid office workers, secretaries and similar perhaps on salaries of 15 – 25K a month and thus unlikely to be considering condos at much more and 8 or 9K per month.

The conclusion is that with this shift away from overpaid expats to the much lower paid indigenous population will come investors being well advised to buy the very small new condos now being built and sold at around 1.2m Baht. If previously you were thinking to buy a condo for 8 million and rent it for 45K a month, you would now be well advised to buy 7 condos at 1.2m Baht, each renting for around 7K per month. The income will be similar but more crucially your chances of having regular tenancy will have just increased many times over.

What Floor is too Low for you?

When is a condo rental just not attractive to you? Too small, price too tall, messy, old, tired, smelly…there are many legitimate reasons I know. But in the case of a low floor in a low rise, is this so that it can be too low?

Walk up and down Soi Langsuan in the centre of Bangkok and find a 2 Bedroom condo rental under 40,000, go on I challenge you. Likely it is not going to happen if it is anything half decent in one of the developments on that street.

Now turn right at the top of Soi Langsuan into Thanon Sarasin…some nice little bistro type cafes and such like along there, and right opposite from Lumpini Park, so without question an awesome place to live. So what stops this 2 Bed Condo rental from becoming a 2 bed condo tenanted? 

 When I first went to see it, it was on the market at 45,000 per month and to be honest that did not strike me as way over board. However, try as we may it would not budge, so now we find it on the market asking just 37,500. Much more buzz and activity around the place but still, no takers.

Oddly it seems a condo can be considered as too low, in terms of the floor on which it sits. I could understand this if it was about passing traffic and pedestrian noise, but that would not be the case in this side street which is at best a ghost street. Further more having the pool, gym and steam room on the same floor just about 15 meters walk from your front door surely is of huge appeal no?

Take a look at the page on our website for this Bangkok Condo Rental that just wont shift! and if you see anything specific, drop us a comment below!