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WHO RENTS A HOUSE IN THAILAND & WHY BOTHER? |
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FOR THOSE GETTING TIRED OF APARTMENT LIFE AND THE WORLD AND ITS UNCLE KNOWING YOUR BUSINESS, THEN PERHAPS RENTING A HOUSE COULD BE THE ANSWER. |
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Read the ajarn.com guide to finding the house of your dreams at the pice that suites your budget.
In this article, Phil concentrates on rentals priced at the lower end of the housing market here, but generally the information supplied is relevant to homes at all budget levels. A very worth while read. |
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Renting a house is primarily for the farang who’s looking to stay in Thailand long-term (at least 3-5 years). Houses are for long-term stayers who have grown tired of apartment living and maybe require a little more privacy, away from the prying eyes of nosey neighbors. You get a feeling of status when you have the keys to your own house, a sense of oneupmanship. It’s satisfying in some strange way to be able to avoid the ‘stigma’ of telling people you live in a 5,000 baht a month studio. Another major reason is it gives freelance English teachers the chance to work from home and set up their own language business - work when you want and charge what you like. |
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What Kind of House is Available and Where are they? |
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The most commonly-rented type of house is what the Thai real estate market refers to as ‘the townhouse’. It typically has at least three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen area, a living room, sometimes a maid’s room, and also a front and back garden. It’s worth mentioning at this point that houses in Thailand are generally built for large families. It’s extremely difficult to find a house suitable for a couple or a single person. Before you rush headlong into the world of house-renting, stop and think. Do you really need two bathrooms or three bedrooms? Whereas an apartment can be relatively easy to clean, a house can be a pain in the ass. There are floors to mop, windows to wash, mosquito screens to be hosed down, and gardens to tend. Houses are often ‘open to the elements’ compared with apartments and I know from experience that if you go away on vacation for a week or two, you can almost write your name in the dust when you return. If you’re the sort who takes no pride in your living environment then this won’t matter, but for most of us, be prepared to spend a lot more time doing mundane household chores.
Many town-houses for rent are located on ‘moobarns’. In Thai, the word moobarn translates as ‘village’ but the term ‘housing estate’ would be far more accurate. These moobarns or housing estates are situated all over Bangkok and most likely the best places for your house-hunting. There are different types of moobarn, from the decaying urban sprawl to the neat, well-designed property development complete with security posts and landscaped gardens. Needless to say, houses in the latter kind of moobarn will be far more expensive to rent. |
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How Much can you Rent a House for? |
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 Obviously this is a piece aimed at the teaching fraternity, so we’ll ignore the huge 60,000 – 100,000 baht a month places touted by the realtors. My own place has three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a maid’s room (now a storage area), and one bathroom, for which I pay 9,000 baht a month. The further you go away from the center of Bangkok, the more you’ll get for your money. Take Rangsit or Samut Prakarn for example – there are many folks out there renting great houses for 6-10,000 baht a month. It was an ex-colleague of mine named John Thompson who originally put me onto the idea of renting a house rather than an apartment. He’s lived in the same gorgeous house in the Ramkhamhaeng area for 18 years. When he first moved in, he was paying 6,000 baht a month, which was a substantial sum of money in those days. Eighteen years later, how much do you think he pays now? (and let me say that it really is a beautiful home) 12,000? 15,000? No, he pays an unbelievable 6,500 baht a month. His rent has increased 500 baht in 18 years. One point we shouldn’t overlook is that if you have a good relationship with your landlord and pay your rent on time, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever face unacceptable rent increases.
Oh, one other point. Most house-owners will expect you to sign a one-year contract. (Continued on page 2 )
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