Two Ways To Get The Price Of Putting Up A House In Thailand For Your Retirement

Two Ways To Get The Price Of Putting Up A House In Thailand For Your Retirement

1. Via Unit Rates In Order To Assess The Price Of Construction.

Utilizing a Rate/metre squared, that is to say Baht/m2, is the primary and most easy method to arrive at an idea of the cost for constructing your retirement home in Thailand. The rate/m2 for constructing homes in Thailand differ depending upon the position in Thailand and the quality of the construction. There are other factors that change the degree of the unit rates, but there are usually no other options to consider to allow for them. For case in point, the cost varying house builders offer varies significantly and can vary, for instance, on whether or not they have plenty of work 'in hand'.

Thai forums are places to look for unit rates, but they ought to be used with caution and considered as a guide only to get an idea for the probable cost of your retirement home in Thailand. The author is not aware of any 'official' unit rates for constructing property in Thailand.

The writer recently approached one of Bangkok's principal and most prominent design and build architectural/building companies who provided a guide unit rate of 15,000 to 20,000 Baht/meter squared.

You may want to transpose the reported 15k to 20k Baht/m2 to a rate based on the Legal Tender of your own native land and compare it to unit rates for the area where you live. For example I currently live in the United Kingdom where the currency is the £ (GBP). The unit rate given by the Bangkok company equals three to four hundred £ /square metre compared with the normal rate in the UK of approximately £1,000 /metre squared. This infers that building in Thailand is 30 to 40 pc of the price for building in the United Kingdom.

A pamphlet named the "Build Cost Guide" presents unit rate prices for property across various sizes and standards of property for Britain. You can obtain a copy from the Home Building & Renovation website.

The build price of a home is derived by multiplying the unit rate by the complete floor area of the building in question.

There is no need to get hold of or deal with a construction company if you are making use of the unit rates technique to find the cost of building your house.

The retirement residence I am hoping to build in Pakchong in Thailand follows the form of the popular Thai post residence - that is a dwelling where the chief living area is placed the second floor elevated by columns or posts and the ground floor area is left open to be configured as utility areas or flexible usage. In our house half of this area will form a storage area and will be provided with plain lightweight block perimeter walls. The other half f the ground floor will remain open and we plan to park the car there, at least until we need to convert the area to living accommodation. It is obvious that the unit rate for habitable rooms should not be used for the ground floor area and this lays bare another drawback in the unit rate approach.

For illustration my future retirement property in Pakchong, Thailand, has totally different ground and first floor configurations. The home follows the form of the traditional Thai post residence where the first floor which contains the living accommodation is held up on 6 posts or columns and is approximately going on for 3 meters higher than the ground. The ground level is half left unfilled to make a car port and the other 50 % is purely a walled area to form a workshop. Clearly the same unit rate should not be used for both floors. (Except if the unit rate was based on a similar structure)

If the basis for the rate per square metre in the beginning was for a property like my own with the open zones adopted, or if it was for a development with a larger %age of real living area, I actually have no idea. And that's the issue I have in applying the rate per square meter.

In the end the unit rate approach can only be adopted to get a very broad idea of the probable price and is actually not accurate enough for setting a budget.

In conclusion the rate/m squared technique can only be utilized to get a very estimated idea of the probable cost and is actually not exact enough for formulating a budget.

2. Getting Hold Of A Building Company's Cost Estimate By The Use Of House Plans For Constructing A Property In Thailand

An alternative to adopting unit rates is to get an estimate to build your retirement pad in Thailand from a construction company. This is customarily based on a set of plans that you have had produced for the house.

Clearly, the more correct and comprehensive the layouts, the more precise the price will be. Further documents might in addition be furnished to augment the drawings and these comprise a Scope of Works describing the shape of the project (not often issued in Thailand) and Schedules. The Schedules are typically a list of finishes, lists of doors, ironwork and so on.

There are three main difficulties with this method.

A) Obtaining The Drawings And Other Papers

I did generate my own Computer Assisted Drawings (CAD) plans and Information for my intended retirement home in Thailand for the simple reason that I'm lucky in that I own and am able to use CAD software and understand home design.

To get me going with preparing my own building drawings I got from the Thai Government website a number of ready made Thai building drawings in pdf and AutoCAD format. I selected one of the homes that I liked and made it bigger in area by adding rooms. This is to a great extent quicker than commencing from a blank sheet of paper.

If you are not attracted to this self help approach you will have to engage somebody to produce the house plans on your behalf. Should you seek to get hold of a Thai Architect to undertake this then you could well hit the same issues that I did.

Firstly getting hold of an Architect in Thailand when you are outside of the country is not simple. I contacted several Architectural companies that I found via the Internet and only one company responded properly to my enquiries.

Secondly, how do you describe to a designer what you wish for? This is especially difficult (not on?) if you aren't in a position to get together in the same room as the designer and brainstorm suggestions and solutions. Undertaking that through the web from another country is almost unachievable.

- Thai Construction Companies Normally Do Not Speak English

Even if it is simple to come across a Thai translator who is able to translate Word documents on your behalf, it is challenging to get a person who will be able to translate English to the Thai language inside a CAD drawing. As well as being able to make the translation, they must also have the ability to manipulate the Autocad software program, and own the program.

Although I stated that on the whole construction companies do not understand English I did manage to find 2 quotes from Thai builders with designs and documents in the English language only.

Again, a lot less complicated to do if you are in Thailand together with the translator and builder.

- The Construction Industry In Thailand Is Still Booming, Despite The recession In The West.

We were able to receive only 2 estimates for our project from six Thai construction companies we approached. Nearly all reported that they were too busy on other building projects to give us a price. It looks that lots of construction companies are engaged on sizeable construction projects in the resorts of Thailand (Like Phucket) and that our tiny scheme in Pak Chong is not worth their while. I hope you have better luck locating a construction company to put up your Thai home!

The way we went about finding house builders consisted of knocking on doors "You have a beautiful property, can you let me know who the construction company was?" My wife finds it easy to approach anybody and one day she was chatting with the Security Guard at our apartment building and he told her that he could get hold of an estimate from at least two construction companies. We took him up on that suggestion but didn't receive the quotations. One was too busy on other projects and the other wanted five thousand Baht in advance prior to preparing a quote in case he wasn't selected!

At this point you will be knowledgeable about the problem areas that can arise when looking for a builder in Thailand to build your dream retirement house. What's more I have shown you the methods I used to obtain an estimate for my own retirement home before agreeing a price with a construction company.

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