Text: Unicorn Observation Dig Brother
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, Mr. Su from Beijing went to Phuket, Thailand for a few days.
Unlike other tourists who are purely sightseeing, Mr. Su also took the task of "collecting houses" in Thailand this time.
In 2017, Mr. Su spent more than 3 million baht (more than 600,000 yuan) to buy a serviced apartment by the sea in Phuket. According to the contract plan, the hotel will be completed in 2019, and from 2020 onwards, Mr. Su will be able to start earning rental income.
However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the construction period of the hotel has been postponed many times, and the opening is far away.
"I was ready for the worst." Mr. Su said that in the past, the other party would regularly update the progress of the hotel's project in the WeChat group, but in those years, the WeChat group was quiet.
After a long wait, in 2022, Thailand announced its full opening, and in 2023, the hotel where Mr. Su bought the apartment finally began its soft opening.
"The hotel is doing very well." Under the favorable background of Thailand's visa-free access to China, the hotel has begun to enter the fast lane this year.
Since the beginning of the year, the hotel has started to pay the rent income for 2023 on a quarterly basis, and Mr. Su decided to go to Phuket to see his house and complete the formalities such as closing the house that has not been done.
01 Buy a house with a sea view
Buying this serviced apartment in Phuket, Mr. Su is completely passive.
"A good friend who likes to travel saw this information about selling a house, so he asked a few good friends to buy it together, so that they could go to Phuket for a vacation together in the future." Mr. Su remembers that it was still in 2017, at the sales point near Chaoyangmen, he read the hotel's brochure and was struck by the sentence "an island of happiness for a lifetime, a home surrounded by the sea on three sides".
After a few rounds of chatting, Mr. Su felt that spending more than 600,000 yuan to have a serviced apartment by the sea in Phuket felt very good, at that time it was a peak of housing prices in Beijing, and the money was enough to buy a toilet in the third ring road.
Moreover, the house in Thailand is still a freehold property, and after the hotel is completed, the other party can entrust the management of the external business, and you can get 7% of the income every year.
Soon, Mr. Su and other friends made up their minds and bought a set each. Among them, Mr. Su chose a small apartment with a view of the sea, and the unit price was slightly higher.
According to the purchase contract, according to the current exchange rate, this sea-view house worth more than 600,000 yuan will be paid in four installments according to the proportions of 20%, 30%, 30% and 20%.
Since then, the sales team has set up a WeChat communication group, and a video of the progress of the hotel project will be posted in the group every month.
Through the screen of his mobile phone, watching from a large open space from laying the foundation to building a small building step by step, Mr. Su began to look forward to the beautiful scenery of being a "charter company".
However, in August 2019, after Mr. Su paid a house payment, the bad news continued, first because of the continuous heavy rain, which caused the construction scaffolding to be unstable, causing the support formwork to collapse, the construction site to stop, and then the epidemic.
The construction of the hotel has been repeatedly postponed, and the promised opening is even more far away.
02 The long wait
According to the plan, the hotel should be open in 5 years in 2020, and the pandemic has brought the global tourism industry to a standstill.
The original on-site closing house can only be glanced at on the line.
The dream of a few friends living together in their own sea view room came to naught, and the hotel was not open, and the rent was not available. In the middle, Mr. Su also signed a delayed charter agreement.
"This is understandable, after all, no one would have expected such an accident to happen." Mr. Su said that he had prepared for the worst at that time, and the hotel was unfinished, and the money was wasted.
Mr. Su's concerns are not unfounded.
On social media, there is also a lot of information about the unfinished buying of houses in Thailand.
Someone bought a house in Thailand for 5 years, the money was paid, and there has been no house. Others have encountered pure Ponzi schemes, half of the houses are built, and the developers run away halfway.
Moreover, once such a thing happens, it is very difficult to defend rights in a foreign country.
What makes Mr. Su a little "sour grapes" is that some Beijing colleagues bought houses in Sanya, Xishuangbanna and other places in China at the same time, although most of them were idle later, but after Beijing entered the cold winter, they could arrange for the elderly in the family to spend the winter, and during the Chinese New Year, the whole family could also reunite in the south for a warm winter.
"Hundreds of thousands of people got in, and I didn't even hear the sound of water." The first time I bought a home overseas, it was not a good experience for Mr. Su.
The regular communication group became deserted, and the long wait made Mr. Su forget about this Thailand apartment.
The turning point came in 2023, and with the recovery of global tourism, Mr. Su finally received the news that the hotel had started its soft opening.
At that time, a friend who bought the hotel apartment with Mr. Su also chose a short vacation to go to the hotel apartment in Phuket to collect the room.
A friend brought Mr. Su bad news, good news.
The bad news is that the location of the apartment bought by my friend is not consistent with the design drawing, and the lighting is blocked, but the good news is that the sea-view room that Mr. Su bought is basically in line with the plan, and it is one of the few sea-view rooms in the hotel.
My friend wanted to find the developer to defend his rights and ask for a change of house or check-out, but he learned that all the ones at the same price were sold out, and if the owner entrusted the developer to sell them, he would charge up to 20% of the intermediary fee.
I had been waiting and looking forward to receiving the house for several years, but the result was not happy.
03 Bitterness comes sweetly
In March 2024, hotels that have been in soft operation for almost a year began to pay out rents for 2023 on a quarterly basis – albeit three years later than originally planned.
However, since the rent is paid in Thai baht, it is necessary to have a Thai baht account, which also made Mr. Su put his trip to Phuket on the agenda.
In September, Mr. Su booked a direct flight from Beijing to Phuket very early.
Unlike the stereotyped impression of Chinese, September, including October, which has a long National Day holiday, is actually Phuket's tourist off-season.
November and April are the peak tourist seasons in Phuket. This time of year is a time of moderate temperature and mild sunshine, making it ideal for water sports such as diving and snorkeling. Many European and American tourists also choose to come to Phuket for a holiday and sunbathing at this time.
Therefore, the air ticket price at this time is also relatively cheap, flying from Beijing to Phuket in 5 hours to reach Phuket International Airport.
Since Thailand is visa-free for China, except for an extra customs stamp at the airport, there is no difference from flying to other cities in China.
Mr. Su's hotel apartment is located on Rawai Beach, the southernmost tip of Phuket, just over 1 hour's drive from the airport.
A senior agent of Thailand apartments told Unicorn Watch that after the epidemic, Thailand's housing prices have experienced a round of retaliatory rebound, especially after the Russia-Ukraine conflict, many Eastern Europeans have run to Thailand to buy houses and settle down in order to avoid risks. This has also pushed up property prices in Phuket to a certain extent.
In addition, all buildings in Phuket are subject to height limits, up to seven storeys, and locals used to choose to sell their land, but now they have also seen the growth potential of Phuket, and they have become savvy and only rent and not sell.
Rawai Beach, where Mr. Su's apartment is located, has also become the largest sector in Phuket because of its scarcity.
"The sales told me that the apartment I bought at that time has now risen to more than 800,000 yuan of the same type." Mr. Su said.
Compared with the purchase price in 2017, there has been an increase of 20% to 30%, and in addition, the Thai baht has appreciated relative to the RMB as a whole in recent years, which has also increased the price of housing a lot.
This increase is not very high, but relative to the trend of domestic housing prices, if Mr. Su bought a house in Beijing or other cities in China in 2017, it must have depreciated sharply now.
Mr. Su said that if he hadn't bought the apartment at that time, there was a high probability that he would have invested his money in the stock market, and it was estimated that it would have fallen long ago.
Mr. Su's original intention of buying this apartment was to facilitate the fun with friends and diversify his investment, and the 7% yield was not very important to Mr. Su, who was engaged in finance.
"At that time, Internet finance was still very popular, and it was common for targets with more than 10% of the income to be obtained." Mr. Su said that he never expected that investment targets with an income of more than 3% are now very scarce.
Mr. Su calculated that with 7% of the income, minus the property fee and management fee, etc., he could also have 6% of the income when he got it.
Mr. Su's apartment, which he feared would be unfinished, has become his most successful investment in years.
Recently, Mr. Su's friend also decided to give up defending his rights first, after all, he didn't buy it for a long time, so he should have bought a financial product. (ENDS)