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House, Condominium or Apartment in Bangkok?The vast majority of residences in central Bangkok are highrise apartments and condominiums. The houses tend to be older. Bangkok is an amazing city full of highrise office buildings, apartments and condominiums. When people arrive, they are amazed at the sheer number and density of highrise buildings. What people don't realize is that most of them were built between 1987 and 1997, when Thailand had one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Land prices skyrocketed in Bangkok due to demand vastly exceeding supply, and suddenly the value of property in the Sukhumvit, Sathorn and Silom regions, for both residential and commercial purposes, meant that few people considered building a house with a lawn in that region of Bangkok. There are some new houses, but not many. Bangkok also became notorious for its traffic, among the world's worst, and the economic losses due to inability to move goods and people in a time efficient manner, as well as overwhelming political pressure resulted in a vast network of elevated tollways designed in the early 1990s and built between 1996 and 2002. This resulted in many housing estates and neighborhoods being built in the suburbs, indeed an explosion of them since around the year 2000. You can actually get to many parts of the central business district more quickly by expressway from the suburbs than by driving in town. You must measure commutes in time, not distance. You may live 4 times as far away as your colleague, but get to work in half the time by car. The skytrain was completed in the year 2000, and during rush hour it is the only way to get anywhere quickly, though it may take you a while to get to/from the skytrain stations by whatever means, and sometimes the trains are too packed to squeeze on during rush hour. If you run a nonstandard schedule, that's much better. Increasing numbers of foreigners have decided to stay in the suburbs and just commute in air conditioned car from the door of their home to their office garage, and to go shopping in spacious suburban malls with abundant sheltered parking in the suburbs. It's good to know the history of Bangkok's property development in order to best understand the current market. Many people and companies got vastly rich in the property market between 1987 and 1996, but by then investment had poured in, including from Japanese banks and also Hong Kong magnates in the last few years before Hong Kong switched from British to Chinese rule in July 1997, and suddenly there was a glut of properties in 1997, the landlords couldn't get the prices they needed to just break even or pay their bills, and the subsequent Asia Economic Crash in 1997 which started in Thailand and quickly spread to the Japanese banking system and Hong Kong financial center and beyond. Few people gave up on the Bangkok market, but they did get much more sophisticated about turning a profit at it. Building resumed in ernest around 2002-3 in the central business district, with construction on many abandoned buildings being resumed and then new ones being started. This was preceded by the construction of suburban housing estates near the new elevated expressways. However, you will find that inside the city, the apartments and condominiums built after the year 2000 are much smaller than those built in the 1987 to 1997 period, as developers simply calculate that they can make more money that way in the market. There are very large new apartments and condominiums, but the percentages shifted a lot. Also, the market very much favors newer properties. Some buyers of condominiums decide it's a better deal to buy an older and bigger unit and totally refurbish the inside according to their custom tastes, than to buy a newer and much more expensive property. It's more work and there's a delay to move-in date, but it may be worth considering. If you have children, then your location will probably be determined mainly by the location of your preferred school. For a single working parent, it is much easier for that one person to commute daily than for the children and other parent to be far from the school and its community. Professional Thai drivers are cheap in Thailand, only about US $ 150 to $ 200 per month, and they can double for running errands. I have used a driver before and just relaxed in the back seat with my notebook portable and gotten a lot of work done during the commute, in the air conditioned and sheltered comfort of my car, door to door from home to work. Forget parking, too, as the driver will drop you off and then find parking or wait somewhere. For cheap, you can also connect to internet by mobile phone connected to your laptop PC by USB cable. We even web browse kkBkk.com from our car! There's a reason you see many drivers hanging around parking lots, and why many buildings and shopping malls in Bangkok have places for drivers to sit near the parking lot, with coffee, and you'll see some in food courts, too. The drivers see others like themselves and get acquainted, too. If you like socializing often with other expats, and the general expat community of Sukhumvit, Silom, Sathorn and Pathumwan, however, then you would probably be happier in and around the central business district. Bangkok is a rapidly evolving greater metropolis and it's important to maintain current sources of information, not rely on old urban legends. That's where some of the smart money is and many happy residents are living. However, everyone's different, and there is a wide range of needs and preferences. The first steps are defining and analyzing your needs and preferences. Other Bangkok regions:
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