Quality Houses in talks with Japanese firm for serviced apartments for ageing citizens

“Japanese property firms are interested in expanding investments in Thailand, especially in Chon Buri province and other provincial areas, hence they need a partner to do business,” Quality Houses president and CEO Chadchart Sittipunt said.
“The negotiating process is on and they may set up a joint venture firm or may be we will only manage their serviced apartment project. Whether the deal goes through or not will depend on business opportunity. However, this shows foreign investors continue to be interested investing in Thailand,” Chadchart said at press conference to introduce its two new condominium projects – the Point Condo Lam Chabang and the Trust Condo of the North Pattaya.
The two condo projects are worth a combined Bt1.8 billion.
He said the company also is studying investing in serviced apartments in Laos by negotiating with Laos property developers who are interested to use the company’s serviced apartment management service.
“We continue to focus on domestic market, while the investment overseas depends on the business opportunity by focusing on the hospitality business only,” Chadchart said.
Meanwhile, the demand to buy residential projects in the first four months of this year has continued to grow. The company recorded presales of more than Bt6.3 billion in the first four months of the year, up 10 per cent from the same period of last year thanks to the country’s economic recovery, he said.
This year, the company has revised down its total presales and total revenue growth target from the earlier estimate of 20-per-cent growth to between 12-13 per cent with total presales about Bt23.6 billion and total revenue of Bt22.1 billion, up 23 per cent and 10 per cent respectively from total presales of Bt21.4 billion and total revenue from residential projects of Bt19.4 billion in 2014.
Up to Bt2.5 billion of its total revenue target worth Bt22.1 billion will come from its nine residential projects in Chon Buri, Bt1.2 billion from three condominium projects in Chon Buri, and Bt1.3 billion from single detached-house projects in Chon Buri province.
The company also cut down new project launches this year to 26 residential projects worth Bt28.5 billion, from 30 projects worth Bt33.01 billion.
“We have revised our total presales, total revenue, and new project launches this year, as we see the demand to buy residential property is slightly lower than our earlier estimates,” he said.
Following its business plan, the company has already launched 7 new residential projects worth up to Bt13.6 billion. The company currently also has total backlog worth Bt9.1 billion. Some of them will be booked as the company’s revenue for this year.
Chadchart said the demand to buy residential property in Chon Buri province is more from locals than from foreigners, because of the location close to the Eastern Seaboard. Up to 95 per cent of its customers are locals and the rest foreigners.
Although commercial banks have tightened mortgages to home-buyers, with mortgage rejection rate averaging 20 per cent, it has had only a limited impact on the company. Quality has targeted new customers and also has measures by increasing down payment to 15 per cent of total residential value, reducing the risk of the bank rejecting a mortgage application, he said.
Meanwhile, the company also supports its customers by launching more special promotion campaigns to boost sales by reducing the price when the company saved on construction cost by about two per cent when oil price dropped. This has driven up its sales growth and enabled it to achieve targets, he said.