The shortlist for the upcoming Thailand Property Awards 2013 has been announced.
Nominees from Phuket are:
Best Condo Development (Phuket)
Kata Rocks and ZCape Condominium
Best Villa Development (Phuket)
Anchan Villas and The Royal Villa – Royal Phuket Marina
Best Residential Agent (Phuket – Independent)
Exotiq Property and Indigo Real Estate
Best Shared Ownership (Thailand)
Anantara Vacation Club and Absolute Twin Sands Resort
An award ceremony will be held September 19th at a gala ceremony at Centara Grand Convention Center at Centralworld Bangkok.
As Phuket continues to reel in mass numbers of travelers from Mainland Chinese, the island's real estate sector is trying to tap the potential buying pool.
On a recent trip to Singapore I picked up a story in the Straits Times about the launch of the Danga Bay condominium project in nearby Malaysia's Johor Baru.
The freehold development with 44 blocks is known as Country Garden Danga Bay and has over 9,000 condos planned ranging from 40 square meters up to 300 square meters.
With the current offering of 7,000 units, the newspaper quoted the developer as saying over 50% have been pre-booked with Chinese nationals representing 50% of the buyers. Of the remaining portion 30% were Malaysians and 20% Singaporeans.
Danga Bay also features a retail mall, massive man-made beach and yacht facilities.
Potential Singapore buyers were temped with the launch by offering free bus trips across the causeway, petrol vouchers and an on-site amusement park.
Listed Hong Kong developer Country Gardens who has a strong base of Mainland customers is behind the project.
A new 44 unit premium residential project in Kata named Q Concept Condominium is rising up.
Designers in a modern theme, units start from THB10 million for one bedroom units just over 80 square meters and rise significantly for larger two bedroom units and spacious penthouses.
A rental option is available with 7% guaranteed returns.
Kata is seeing a surge of interest in both the hotel and property market.
For island residents driving past Naithon Beach who see construction next to the Malaiwana Estate, a number of our readers have been asking what project this is?
The answer is the Residences at Malaiwana and this is a new separate estate of 12 multi-million dollar ultra luxury apartments and penthouses.
With development well underway, seven of the units have already been pre-sold.
Pricing for the remainder of the inventory ranges from THB80 to THB105 million.
Full completion for the Residences according to developer Stephen Paine is scheduled for the third quarter of 2015.
Meanwhile down the road in Layan piling work is starting on the new Anantara ultra private residences which will come into the market later this year.
Pricing points look be at some of the highest the island has ever seen.
Australia's far north Cairn's is buzzing over news that Hong Kong billionaire Tony Fung will develop a massive mixed use hotel and gaming complex.
Plans call for a world class casino, nine hotels, golf course, residential condos and villas, a sports stadium and aquarium.
The project which is called Aquis Resort at the Greater Barrier Reef is just 13 km away from Cairns and is expected to target Chinese and other Asian visitors.
While the state government is streamlining plans, the next hurdle will be environmental approvals
Yesterday four global shared ownership firms jointly issued a statement to Singapore's Straits Times regarding a proposed new government amendment to consumer laws.
Thailand's Anantara Vacation Club, Interval International (II), RCI and Wyndham Vacation Ownership are crying foul over a possible change, which would disallow the collection of payments during the mandatory 5-day cooling off period following a sale.
The Straits Times published article yesterday, which said that complaints over timeshare and other alternative ownership programs were a leading source of complaints with the Consumer Association of Singapore.
Comments from the four industry players said that potential financial fall-out could be enormous if companies were unable to effectively close deals at the time of transaction through a deposit process, as it would allow buyers to easily walk away from deals.
Thailand has a consumer code, which necessitates a cooling off period for timeshare transactions.
All too often disgruntled property buyers make comparisons to what they say is Thailand's lax property ownership legal framework and those of more mature markets such as Singapore.
Coming back from the island Republic today I couldn't help reading a Straits Times piece about angry owners at a Singapore condominium who were in a bitter dispute with the governing body over parking fees.
According to the article lawyers are now involved and a second dispute has broken out over increases in condo maintenance fees.
Sounds familiar? Of course property disputes are a global event and you can probably even track back the onset of the phenomenon to that Eden development and Adam and Eve's contentious snake problem.
Some things never change or shall we say "same same but different."
I'm at a loss to explain the real estate "value" category and certainly loath to use the term "affordable."
One group expanding their products which are aimed at foreign buyers is the CoCo Group.
Starting out the with a Rawai project, the latest offering is the CoCo Kamala with 27 villas a project site of 6 rai.
With two and three bedroom detached and semi-detached units pricing ranges from THB7.49 million to 13 million on a leasehold purchase basis.
Property management of the estate will be through Jones Lang Lasalle (Thailand).
Speaking to Co Co's Angus Keeling the other day the next offering will be CoCo Chalong with 80 units on a 12 rai site. Pricing points will go from mid THB5 million up to just over THB8 million.
The affiliated design firm Oracle are the architects.
Key buyers for the southern island properties to date are Australian's and Eastern Europeans who are finding the attractive price points, design style and turn-key solutions to be lead drivers of demand.
Expect to hear more from the CoCo Group.
In order to address the rampant surge of condominiums on small plots Pattaya has slashed plot ration from 10:1 to 5:1.
There has been a building concern that local municipal infrastructure such as road traffic, utilities and parking cannot cope with the influx of next project.
The new regulation will hit mainly small sites which have a considerably small footprint.
