Knight Frank foresees bright prospects for Hua Hin property market
Frank Khan, head of the residential department of Knight Frank Chartered (Thailand), said recently that the prospects of the Hua Hin property market were bright.
Property sales in the resort town have almost doubled in recent years, as many of the country’s leading developers, including Sansiri, Q House, SC Asset, Land and Houses and LPN, have started planning new projects. Their contribution to the market has also strengthened the competition.
In addition, new retail develop-ments, such as the massive BLUPORT Hua Hin Resort Mall, are boosting buyer interest in the area. On the supply side, the number of new seaside condominiums will drop given the scarcity of land for real-estate projects, though there are still some plots available in areas such as Kao Tao, Puk Tien and Pranburi.
However, since they are far from the city centre and their beaches are not as nice, these areas are not as popular as Hua Hin itself. Khan said the accumulated supply of condos up until the first half of year was 17,349 units, marking an increase of 6,000 units at the end of last year from The Energy project, which is mostly comprised of one-bedroom units. During the first half of this year, there was a new supply of approximately 4,000 units, which is quite high. Rise in demand was reflected by the more than 1,600 units sold in the first half, compared to some 1,300 units sold in the same period last year. However, demand has not risen at the same rate as supply.
Buyers are generally Bangkok residents looking for a vacation home and the proportion of foreign buyers is not very high.
The price of a one-bedroom condo in Hua Hin is approximately Bt900,000 for a non-beachfront unit and about Bt2 million to Bt3 million |for those with ocean view. Though the trend of condo pricing in Hua Hin is |rising, it will only be in the range of |2-3 per cent. Prospective buyers will largely remain Bangkok residents, with some from Scandinavia, Russia and Germany.
Khan explained that a new sub-group of local buyers was emerging, largely comprised of young professional Thais whose parents already own a second home in the resort town. He said that since they already have close ties with Hua Hin, they want to buy smaller units to call their own.
THE NATION
