Who'll Stop the Rain?

All of last week, I forgot what exactly the sun looks like. A daily dose of various shades of gray has somehow tweaked my routine into that of a monochrome cowboy.
Perhaps I could don a mask and be the Zorro of property and hotels. Masks don't work well with me though. My head' s too big. The same goes for hats as I end up looking like one of those goofy inmates in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
The best I can muster is a slightly awry baseball cap, in the elusive size of "W" (as in watermelon, which is bigger than XXXL).
At least the raindrops let me connect with my inner Rainman.
Despite all sorts of comments about killer monsoons and the imminent danger of global warming, this year's rainy season seems like another version in the drone tune "same same, sane insane" by some thrash metal Laotian rock band.
Yes, the shorelines are in tatters, the roofs are leaking and the inland roadways are looking as if someone pulled their finger out of the dike upcountry in Holland.
Luckily, Havaianas float better than even the finest pair of Dutch clogs. As for the sorely misinformed who wear Crocs, I'm sorry to say you have been deemed too unfashionable and now have to spend the entire rainy season in the sin bin.
But somehow I am off course.
Let's move on to property, otherwise the rage of my beleaguered editor will require yet another bottle of Xanax.
Anecdotally, I can't help but take a side trip onto the Web MD Internet site to find that some side effects from mothers' little helpers can lead to seeing things or hearing voices that do not exist (hallucinating), depression, memory problems, confusion, loss of consciousness, problems with speech and unusual changes in behavior or mood.
This somehow reflects how the property trade views itself as a whole during the lean, mean, green season.
We are now in the countdown to the middle of 2012, and indeed it is a meeting at the crux. So, what lies ahead for us? Certainly a fast approaching speeding bullet is the launch of a new Sansiri property in a prime location near Central – it is going to be a slam dunk.
Hotel sales continue to flourish: Evason in Rawai is about to announce a new buyer, while up in Bangtao there is another resort sale and two other properties coming onto the market.
In terms of highest and best use, development planning in what we smugly call 'resort grade real estate' is, for the most part, hospitality related.
A few smaller West Coast, ultra luxury projects (which have taken to selling off-plan) have floundered as buyers grow increasingly skeptical about project completion risk.
Although, on the ultra-side, the industry is waiting for high profile launches from Point Yamu, New World on the Patong headland and an affiliate of Japanese group Kajima Overseas above Layan Beach.
Patong land prices continue to skyrocket with asking prices moving from two digits to the now astronomical three.
For the most part, the real action is in domestic shoe-boxflats at one million baht and the resale of existing properties.
As we all know, the world around us is revolving on a teeter totter at the moment and certainly things could be much worse.