How to negotiate the price of my future Thailand home?

The search for a new house is often in line with the price range that you are willing to tackle for your budget. But sometimes, home buyers tend to forget that there is always a possible negotiation part, especially in Thailand where the property prices can have a loose overhead. In this guide, we will talk about the different price ranges and how to negotiate the final cost of your future home in Thailand.

How to successfully buy the best quality price property in Thailand?

To be simple and straightforward, let’s have a imaginary budget. John is house hunting in Chiang Mai. He wants to move in a new place with his Thai wife, they have all the paperwork sorted out for the VISA, and they have a beautiful budget of 5 million baht (around 150 000$ USD). With that budget you can have a nice big 2 floors 3 bedrooms detached house, less than 20 minutes of driving from the city square of Chiang Mai, with a decent land!

First, it is important to surface the areas that are more likely to have houses with prices that respond to your target budget. You can try to pinpoint 3 completely different areas, pick some houses that interest you in each of them, and then narrow down until you have just a few left. Take note that it doesn’t matter if sometimes it seems a bit over your budget, that’s where the negotiation phase will come handy, thus why you need to have a few eggs in your basket beforehand.

How much the asking prices compare to the actual selling prices in Thailand?

Now that you have your eggs ready, it’s time to make some appointments, either through an agent or alone. But if you go as a lone wolf, be aware that all the paperwork and the laws that you have to know, plus the transfer of the money etc. will all require you to know at least an intermediate level of the Thai language and of the law in Thailand. In most cases, you will have to pay for a real estate lawyer which will end up being a lot more expensive than if you would just do business with an agent. Yes, a realtor in Thailand takes a cut generally between 3% and 5%, but at least you are covered on all those fronts and you won’t need to do business with a costly lawyer.

After or during the visits, you can require the asking price and then ask if it is possible to go lower. That’s where having multiple eggs in your basket can become helpful, since you can tell the homeowner or your agent that perhaps you will buy another house that you visited already, but less expensive. Your agent doesn’t want that, nor the homeowner, sometimes home owners will be a bit desperate for a sale, and this is a good way to show them that you are looking at multiple houses at once, and not just that one!

In the end, the asking price in Thailand can be often tightly close with the real price, but if you plan multiple visits, at different price range houses, in 2 or 3 different areas, you will have more chance to successfully score a good deal since it gives you more options for further negotiations. On a last note, it is important to consider furniture if they are included or not, or how much more you would need to pay to get some or all of them if there are any.