Five priorities to avert a property crisis: unlocking home loans and tackling global warming

Three property associations have identified five major challenges in reviving the market through action by the government and banks. These range from unlocking home loans for a new generation of borrowers, promoting energy-efficient homes and developing urban infrastructure to withstand natural disasters, to regulating foreign property transactions and building stronger communities. They hope government measures will revive purchasing power. Meanwhile, the House & Condo Expo will be reduced to once a year from 2027, with a major event planned for late this year featuring more than 1,000 projects and targeting sales exceeding 10 billion baht.

The property market is approaching a turning point. Problems with purchasing power no longer concern only “high prices”, but extend to access to credit, changing consumer behaviour, urban infrastructure that must withstand natural disasters, sustainability and community management.

Against this backdrop, three leading property associations—the Housing Business Association, the Thai Condominium Association and the Thai Real Estate Association—have joined forces to submit proposals to the government and banks. They are also working to stimulate the market through the 50th House & Condo Expo, hoping to give it a boost in the final stretch of 2026.

Unlocking home loans: a major challenge

Sunthorn Sathaporn, president of the Housing Business Association, believes one key to reviving the market is enabling people to access home loans in ways that suit economic conditions and modern working patterns. A major problem is that traditional income assessment systems may no longer reflect the changing structure of the workforce.

This is particularly true of younger people and members of Gen Z who work as freelancers, sell goods online or earn money as content creators and YouTubers. They do not have regular incomes or payslips in the same way as salaried employees. The proposal is therefore to shift assessments away from reliance on “income documents” towards borrowers’ actual earnings, providing a more accurate picture of their repayment capacity.

Another proposed mechanism is a mortgage guarantee scheme, under which state financial institutions would partially guarantee loans for income-generating properties. This would help ease credit constraints for small and medium-sized businesses and certain groups of borrowers. There is also a proposal to move from flat-rate interest pricing to risk-based pricing, setting interest rates according to borrowers’ risk profiles. In principle, borrowers with good credit records and low risk should receive lower interest rates, while those with higher risk who still qualify for loans might pay higher rates, allowing loan pricing to reflect actual risk.

Rising mortgage rejections undermine demand

Pitipat Preedanont, president of the Thai Condominium Association, highlighted another dimension of the problem: the property market is not simply facing a shortage of prospective buyers, but also constraints on their ability to borrow. The mortgage rejection rate is currently estimated at more than 50%, reflecting a gap between the desire to own a home and the ability to obtain financing. When buyers cannot secure loans, promotions or price reductions alone may not be enough to turn demand into completed ownership transfers.

One proposal the Thai Condominium Association wants the Finance Ministry to consider is reviving first-home measures to provide incentives and help Thai people own their homes. The challenge is therefore not simply to stimulate purchasing power, but to ensure that it can translate into successful mortgage applications and ownership transfers.

Green homes: from a trend to a way of reducing living costs

Another area the property sector wants to promote is green finance, shifting the perception of energy-efficient homes from an exclusively environmental issue towards the “cost of living in a home”. Sunthorn proposed government support for home designs that reduce energy consumption, ranging from passive design, which uses natural airflow and light and can help cut energy costs by at least 12%, to active design and renewable energy, which could deliver savings of up to 25%.

Installing rooftop solar panels or additional power generation systems could reduce energy costs by as much as 50%, according to the approaches proposed by the industry. The key is to establish green financing throughout the process, covering both pre-finance for developers and post-finance for homebuyers, so that the cost of the transition to energy-efficient housing does not fall solely on either consumers or developers.

Natural disasters become a property-sector challenge

As climate conditions and natural disasters become risks that directly affect quality of life, the property sector believes future developments can no longer be considered separately from “urban infrastructure”.

One important question is whether Bangkok and its surrounding provinces will remain the main urban centre. If they do, the government needs to plan systematically for natural disasters, particularly flooding. The proposals therefore extend beyond individual developments to the national level, including consideration of large-scale water management systems such as the Netherlands’ Delta Model or Venice’s flood protection system, before integrating them into urban planning and budget allocation.

With clear infrastructure plans in place, the private sector can build on them through resilient design, making housing estates and condominiums better able to cope with emergencies. Examples include providing water detention or retention areas within developments.

This approach suggests that homes in the future may compete not only on location and price, but also on their ability to withstand uncertainty.

Regulating foreign purchases and leases before nominee problems escalate

Another issue on which the three associations agree is the need to regulate property purchases and leases by foreigners. The private sector has proposed reviewing the tax structure for foreigners, arguing that their tax rates need not necessarily be the same as those applied to Thai nationals. It also wants condominium purchases and long-term leases brought into a more transparent system.

The main aim is to reduce nominee ownership, or the use of another person to hold property on someone else’s behalf—an issue that requires both legislation and effective scrutiny.

The industry has also proposed using tax revenue collected from foreigners to support vulnerable groups, including low-income and elderly Thai people.

Housing estate management bodies: from caretakers to “crisis response centres”

Management after a property sale is another issue being raised. The responsibilities associated with a home do not end when ownership is transferred: communal areas and residents’ quality of life still require ongoing care. Sunthorn proposed advancing subsidiary legislation under the Interior Ministry to clarify the establishment of housing estate juristic persons—the legal bodies responsible for managing estates—and strengthen communities’ ability to manage their own affairs.

The proposal is to allow residents to establish a management body themselves if the developer is unable to do so, while requiring the developer to remain responsible for a prescribed share of infrastructure maintenance costs. If residents are also unable to establish the body, a local administrative organisation could take over responsibility.

Beyond this, housing estate management bodies could become community coordination centres during emergencies, including floods, disasters or incidents affecting large numbers of residents. This would expand their role from maintaining communal areas to becoming an important mechanism for building “communities capable of responding to crises”.

House & Condo Expo to be held once a year

Pornnarit Chounchaisit, president of the Thai Real Estate Association, said that alongside the structural proposals, the three associations were preparing to use market mechanisms to stimulate purchasing power directly through the 50th House & Condo Expo. Under the theme of offering the most comprehensive choice across every area, location and price range, the event will feature more than 1,000 projects. It will take place from October 29 to November 1, 2026, at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, Hall 8, LG floor.

The event will be developed into a Green Expo, linking homebuying with quality of life, energy savings and sustainability. It will bring together developers, financial institutions and housing innovations from across the country, featuring more than 1,000 projects in the hope of boosting the market in the final stretch of 2026. This year’s target is more than 10 billion baht in sales during the event, with the organisers also aiming for sales growth compared with the previous year.

“From 2027 onwards, the three associations plan to hold the House & Condo Expo once a year because the number of new project launches has fallen, and those being launched are mainly by large companies. Smaller companies are launching fewer projects and face difficulties obtaining loans. Holding the event more frequently therefore means fewer projects and fewer participating companies.”

From a “home sales fair” to reviving the entire system

Taken together, the three associations’ proposals show that the property sector’s challenges are not confined to sales. They span credit, purchasing power, energy, urban infrastructure, taxation, communities and the ability to withstand natural disasters. What the private sector wants from the government is therefore more than short-term stimulus: it wants the “property ecosystem” redesigned to reflect changing consumer behaviour and future risks.

If people want to buy but cannot borrow, if energy-efficient homes cannot secure financing, if cities expand without adequate infrastructure, or if developments have homes but lack mechanisms to care for their communities, the market’s problem may not be “a lack of demand”. It may instead be that the system cannot carry that demand through to completion. This could be the property market’s biggest challenge in the transition from 2026 to 2027: not simply how to get people buying homes again, but how to enable them to buy a home, live in it and enjoy a good quality of life sustainably.