Bright prospects for Hua Hin home market

The company’s director and head of residential department, Frank Khan, yesterday said the prospects for the Hua Hin property market were bright.

With sales in Hua Hin having doubled in recent years, many of the country’s leading developers, including Sansiri, Quality Houses, SC Asset Corp, Land and Houses, and LPN Development, have new condominium projects planned, and their participation in the market has strengthened competition, he said.

In addition, major new retail developments, such as the massive Bluport Hua Hin Resort Mall, are in the pipeline, boosting buyer interest in the area.

On the supply side, the number of new condominiums by the sea will decrease, given the increasing scarcity of such land for real-estate projects. While there are still some empty plots in areas such as Kao Tao, Puk Tien and Pran Buri, they are farther from the city centre and other conveniences, and their beaches are not as nice, which means the areas are not as popular as Hua Hin, he said.

Khan added that the accumulated supply of condos up until June 30 was 17,349 units, representing an increase of 6,000 units since the end of last year as a result of The Energy project, which mostly comprises one-bedroom units.

During the first half, there was a new supply of about 4,000 units, which is quite high, while demand was reflected in the more than 1,600 units sold. In the past, six-month sales were around 500 to 1,000 units and last year, some 1,300 units were sold.

Despite the heightened demand, it has not increased at the same rate as supply, the company’s research found.

Buyers are generally Bangkok residents looking for a second property as a vacation home, and the proportion of foreign buyers is not very high, he said. The price of a one-bedroom condo in Hua Hin is about Bt900,000 for a non-beachfront unit, and Bt2 million to Bt3 million for those with ocean views.

The trend of condo pricing in Hua Hin is for further increases, but not at a high level because of the competition, he said, adding that his company expected it to be in the range of 2-3 per cent. Prospective buyers will largely remain Bangkok residents, with some buyers from Scandinavia, Russia and Germany.

Interestingly, a new sub-group of local buyers is emerging, largely consisting of young professional Thais whose parents already own a second home in Hua Hin. They maintain close ties to the resort town and would like to have small units, such as studios or one-bedroom condos, as their own resort-property investment, the director said.