donny

I'm not sure if it's actually true that salt air eats up your computer in no time; I'm right next to the sea here in Edinburgh and my computers all last years. I think salt air has more affect on cars, insofar as it accelerates the rusting process but you're still talking about years and years, certainly far more time than it takes for your computer to become redundant anyway. I can imagine that the general humidity of Thailand might effect a PC but, again, I've never heard anyone complaining about it. Anyway, you don't need a computer for VOIP if you use a more professional and actually cheaper VOIP service such as Broadvoice. They provide a small box that you stick your broadband Internet connection and your phone into. Obviously, you can share the broadband connection with your computer too but you don't actually need it to make calls - very handy if you want to be able to switch you computer off occasionally but still receive calls. You can reduce background noise substantially by sticking a high quality phone into the VOIP box; I use a top-of-the-range Panasonic wireless phone base, with an additional base and handset in another room. I also use a Plantronics wireless earpiece, synced with the same Panasonic phone base, expensive but very light and convenient when I'm taking a lot of calls but what to keep my hands free. The dream of working from your home in Thailand is an alluring one but don't forget that working for yourself takes an awesome amount of self-discipline and dealing with customers, particularly trying to get paid, generally takes far longer than you would expect. The parts of your work that you enjoy soon become submerged by all the support tasks you take for granted when you work for a company. Another quirk is that most customers like to meet you in person quite often even though it would save everyone a lot of time to communicate purely by phone and email; it doesn't make much sense but it's a ritual that most businesses owners and managers are fond of. I don't know if the new push behind webcams will make much difference, perhaps customers will become satisfied with talking to you face to face instead of real-world meetings. Right now, however, and unless you have a very unique and in-demand skillset, having only an Internet presence is a tougher sell than you would think.

One thing worth remembering if using Skype to call your TG from Farangland is that, to her, the call will appear to be coming from a Bangkok landline. She may well conclude that you are lying about being back at home and are, in fact, living it up in BKK.

I'll bet you did the same as me: bought the minimum E10 of Skype-Out credit so that you could try it out, made a couple of calls and then moved onto other things. Then, months later, when you actually needed to make a bunch of International calls, you were dismayed to discover that your credit had expired. Having prepaid credit expire is pretty standard in telecommunications, most calling cards even deduct a certain amount for every month you leave credit stored on them. I don't think this sort of cash-grab was a particularly smart way to treat paying customers but the experiation terms were clearly stated when you signed up. You did read the small print, didn't you?

Don't rely entirely on anything using VOIP, the call quality can be lousy sometimes. Then again, this call forwarding sounds as if it doesn't rely upon any domestic broadband connections, so, you will probably be okay. If you want to keep your location secret, you should check that you can hide your mobile number when you call people back - I seem to remember someone saying that the Thai government doesn't allow mobile number hiding for security reasons.

Buying last week, in my situation (slightly complicated by the fact that I am flying from Edinburgh rather than London), I noticed that the premium I'd have to pay for a flexible return in Jume, one that would allow me to return anytime within the next year, was too high, especially the ones that charge a £100 or £150 fee when the time comes to change the return date. Instead, I bought a one-way for £362. That got me BMI down to Heathrow and, then, Eva direct to Bangkok, with barely any wait time in Heathrow. That price may seem high, but you've got to figure that about £60 of that is the Edinburgh-Heathrow leg. Yes, I know that I could get a rtn from London for under £400 but those tickets cannot be changed and a 30-day rtn is of no use to me. Most experienced expats seem to agree that it's cheaper to buy tickets in Thailand, so, I'll probably get a Thailand-UK rtn when the time comes, allowing me to buy all my tickets in Thailand from now on. At the very least, I'll be hoping to get a one-way back to Edinburgh for around the same price: £362 / 26,000b.

Bestmate, thanks for posting the prices. Interesting but I would object to any sort of joiner fee - it's a nasty, opportunistic money grab that masquerades as respectability in the face of the overwhelming reality of Pattaya and their customers' needs.

My instinct would certainly be to buy second-hand. I'm curious about how Thai's reluctance to buy second-hand properties is going to affect farangs selling company-owned properties if other farangs aren't able to buy them because of this stricter interpretation. Could someone trying to sell an old place find that absolutely no-one is interested?

Whatever you do, don't get married in order to simplify your life! Putting the house into your wife's name is also an extremely poor idea - if you value your relationship, don't do it, it's as simple as that. If your concern is to "lock-in" your place to live, use the money you were thinking of spending on a Thai house to, instead, buy a rentable property in your home country and choose a management company who will handle everything for a percentage. Instruct the management company not to deduct tax at source as you will be a non-resident (tax regulations vary from country to country but the principal of non-resident exemptions should apply pretty much everywhere). Have the rent deposited into your home country bank account and withdraw it via ATM to pay the rent on a nice place in Thailand. The advantages of this approach are that your investment gets to appreciate in a stable legal/political setting and, if everything goes tits up in Thailand, you will have somewhere to go - simply knowing that option is there will make you feel better when the homesickness periodically kicks in. The disadvantages are that rents may rise faster in Thailand than in your home country or the Baht could strengthen too much. I reckon the stability advantage outweighs the disadvantages and, anyway, despite the recent boom, the fundatmental flaws and corruption in the Thai set-up will keep dragging their economy and currency back below Western economies. Of course, your investment doesn't have to be in property; braver souls than I would suggest just throwing the lot into stocks or whatever and drawing your rent from that but, personally, I think having at least one actual property is an important safety net. Once you've got that in place, you can play the market to your heart's content.

I believe that, at this stage, we have established that the quality of rooms in the Nana varies greatly - some are fine, some are shit, booking there is a gamble unless you know which rooms are fine, possibly by getting the room number of someone who was happy with what they got. I gather that their pricier rooms are uniformly good.

Do condos within the 49% farang allocation cost more than the Thai ones?

for_ard, I'm no expert, this is based only upon a couple of months earlier this year spent checking out the possibilities. Boardie Badtz, an expat who has looked into this quite extensively, showed me around and gave me a lot of great advice about how to route around the estate agents and sundry other parasites. Sorry to say that there is no easy way to get an accurate idea of the actual market (as opposed to the illusion presented by the industry), you've got to actually get out there, preferably on a motorbike, and see the prices that owners stick in front of their houses. At the very least, there will be a mobile number, so, make sure you have a phone with you. Don't forget to also pay attention to signs advertising rental rates, that will give you a more realistic sense of what your rental income could be. Driving around is great fun and massively expands your sense of what Pattaya has to offer. Simply realizing that there are more options than central Pattaya and Jomtien beach will give you many more options. When you find an area you think you might like, don't be shy about talking to Farang's you see sitting outside their homes or drinking in the local watering holes. The best info you can get is from people who have recently sold a place and aren't currently trying to sell anything. The key here, as with the agency prices, is that the prices that matters aren't the ones they're asking for but, rather, the ones they're getting. The impression I built up was that agency prices are in a completely different universe from real prices set by owners who actually want to sell. The 10% you suggest would not be an unreasonable surcharge to pay but, unfortunately, the agents prefer, instead, to almost double the price and sit on the property for years in the hope that a sucker in a hurry will eventually turn up. Remember, the agents and condo builders have entirely rigged the supply and demand equation. It's a bit like de Beers management of the global diamond supply - all the vested interests have realized that, by banding together, by controlling supply and by presenting a consistent illusion, they all massively benefit. You can route around them and hook up with the individual sellers who are being screwed at the other end of the equation but, as I say, you have to get out there.

Yeah, fans are much healthier.

And, of course, the baht cost a lot less back then. Surely people must realize that the current prices are not sustainable?

Fopa, note that yesterday the law was changed to stop foreign buyers using the company loophole to purchase houses. You can read about it on the Bangkok Post website. Calling them "gated communities" is a bit of an overstatement - when I was checking loads of them out a month or so back, I was able to simply drive my motorbike straight in, wasn't stopped or checked out even once. Possibly if I was Thai I would have been but, even so, the security is nowhere near as tight as gated communities in your country. Probably not wise to compare prices with SF and definitely don't base your calculations on the prices listed online by realtors. Better to rent somewhere for a few months and give yourself the time to explore the various areas and the real prices. I like East Pattaya but would definitely rent for a while on my intended street/community before buying - if you make a mistake it is very hard to offload your property and start again. Some people feel that East Pattaya is too dangerous, so, it's worth reading the newspapers too to work out which areas you're less likely to get shot in.

Yeah, for supposedly savvy Western consumers, people are surprisingly naive when it comes to taking property advice from people with a vested interest in hyping the market. Like your guy, the biggest pig-in-a-poke they get fed are inflated rental income estimates that blatantly ignore the seasonal nature of Pattaya. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next year or so because the normal laws of supply and demand are not in effect here; a flood of Western buyers, pumped up by property buying TV shows, easy bank loans and a sense that they missed out on the Western property booms, are all too ready to believe that Western-priced condos will magically pay for themselves with Western-level rental income. How will they react when that doesn't materialize? As I say, it is going to be interesting.

How much did that set you back?

That's the problem: you could do worse right there in the same hotel. It's clear from the variety of responses here that the Nana has a mixture of both good and bad rooms, not much way to know which you're going to get.

Well, actually, it wouldn't necessarily be a particular Thai or even "Thai vs Farang" thing, every country struggles with the problem of rising property prices leaving leaving local people or low-paid workers behind. In the UK, I believe there are extra taxes on homes bought as second/vacation homes. I think that first-time buyers, generally younger buyers struggling to get onto the property ladder, are given some sort of tax break too. Many people on lower incomes rent subsidised council housing and low-paid essential workers (nurses, fire-fighters etc) in extremely expensive areas such as London can sometimes buy cut-price apartments. I expect that Thaksin will respond to from pressure from all sides, including Farang home-owners, by introducing a compromise allowing Farangs to transfer properties properly into their own names but also hit them with a hefty tax, supposedly designed to level the playing field between Farangs and Thais.

Wow, the situation actually seems to be more serious than we thought; this is from The Bangkok Post: New property law stuns foreigners Bangkok (dpa) - Thailand's booming property sector has been thrown into confusion by a new regulation issued this month that requires all partly foreign-owned companies to prove the source of their funding before purchasing land, industry sources said Tuesday. The new Interior Ministry regulation that went into effect on May 25 has already started to slow sales of housing estates in Thailand's popular seaside resorts, such as Pattaya, Phuket, Hua Hin and Samui Island, which have been specifically targeting well-to-do foreigners as vacation getaways or retirement homes. "The property boom ended on May 25," said Ronachai Krisadaolarn, managing director of Bangkok International Associates, a Bangkok-based legal consultancy firm that caters to foreign clients. Thailand has strict laws prohibiting foreigners from directly purchasing property themselves although loopholes in the law allow them to own land and their houses through long leases or a "nominee company," providing the company is majority Thai-owned. It is common practice for such "shell companies" to include Thai nationals who have been paid to act as nominees to facilitate the deal and who have invested nothing in the purchase. The new regulation, signed by Suraart Thoingniramol, deputy permanent secretary of the Interior Ministry, is designed to halt the use of such companies for property purchases in the future. "If it appears that an alien holds shares or is a director or it is reasonable to believe that a Thai holds shares as a representative of an alien, the officers shall investigate the income of Thais holding shares, delving into the number of years [they have spent] in the current profession and monthly salary," reads a translation of the law. "The provision of necessary evidence is required." The new regulation is actually an enforcement of Thailand's existing laws, legal experts said. "It's not a radical change. It's a radical implementation," Ronachai said. The regulation has already started to stall home sales to foreigners, sources said. "There's a lot of confusion," said Simon Landy, managing director of the Primo Co, a property-development firm. "Some land offices don't know what to do with it, and many have simply stopped transferring land."

I think the point is that revoking house ownership would force thousands of Farangs to sell at a huge market-glut discount, giving a bonus to the many Thais who feel they have been priced out of the property market by farangs but an even bigger bonus to the big land owners. Many farangs would probably leave Thailand in disgust but I guess quite a few would stay and use the pittance earned from the rushed sale of their house to buy a condo. It would damage Thailand's reputation and the economy in the long-term but I guess it could provide the sort of short-term surge in popularity that Thaksin needs right now. The sudden rush of transactions would also pump up revenues and create the illusion of growth, something the Thai economy might need now that the high Baht is hurting exports. Thaksin is going to need to juggle something to cling onto power and stay out of jail. I could also imagine the property developers, sitting as they are upon a glut of condos, pushing for such a move. Again, bad for them in the long-term but they have more immediate worries.

Yeah, one of the main reasons why I've been in Pattaya so much this year was to check out the property market. One thing that buyers should be aware of is that there seem to be two different sets of prices: those that the agents and websites list, and the far lower prices that properties are actually changing hands for. There are numerous examples where properties are being owner-sold for 2m, with almost identical properties sitting unsold on the agents' books at 4m or whatever. Seriously, rent yourself a vehicle and get out there to see what's actually available direct from the owners. People on the ground, familiar with the current market but without a financial interest in hyping it, repeatedly told me that it is very much a buyer's market and that the prices being suggested by the industry are simply not a reflection of reality. It seems that the agents have collectively decided to pump up the market by creating the impression that prices are far higher than they actually are. While there has been genuine underlying boom, the ridiculous rises you hear about are really just a cleverly engineered scam to rush people into making a decision i.e. "buy now while you can still afford it". Estate agents/realtors are the biggest whores in Pattaya. The big condo developers, with their "Last Few Remaining" prices are also part of this hustle so, if you buy at that price, don't bet on being able get your money back anytime soon. Remember, this isn't Europe, this isn't America, don't fall for the trick of comparing prices. Build quality, long-term maintenance, water availability and legal uncertainties are all added complications here. While buying-to-rent is a fine idea in theory, are there really going to be enough renters? There is a huge glut of property coming onto the market, what happens to the rents when there are more properties than tenants? And is Pattaya itself going to be as much of a draw in 10 years time? Thailand's economy is developing quite rapidly and the supply of cheap sex, Pattaya's main draw, has been affected somewhat by that. Isaan is still dirt poor but rising expectations on the part of the girls, combined with the appreciating Baht have already changed the equation. What happens if a desperate Thaksin decides to play the ultimate nationalist card and cracks down on the farang-oriented sex industry? Or Bush responds to low poll ratings by invading Iran, pushing oil prices to levels that start to seriously impact long-distance travel? The whole Iraq adventure has already made my tickets so far this year more expensive than ever. Even at the rent levels suggested for this property, 20,000b per month, that's 15 years of uninterrupted rent before you've made back your principle. Let's not even get into the fact that 20,000 actually sounds pretty high for a 1-bed VT2 (admittedly, a much nicer building than VT1), especially if you're talking about a long-term renter. I've seen far nicer condos in better locations go for around that price. My guess is that this price, 3.6m, has been set at the agency rather than "real" level - it's a trade off: they know that it probably won't sell but, if a big enough fool happens along, they'll make out like bandits.

So, you book your room, arrive, ask to see the room and are shocked to discover that it's a shit-hole - what then? A busy place like the Nana probably isn't going to have a better, empty room to give you, so, do your storm off into the heat and traffic, dragging your heavy suitcase behind you, to trail around multiple hotels looking for a walk-in rate that isn't completely extortionate? If the standard of the room is that important to you, read the advice here and book somewhere more consistent. The Nana is a crap shoot, just like mongering in general.

Opinion on the Nana Hotel is highly polarized, probably more so than any other hotel that gets mentioned on this board. Having ploughed through hundreds of comments, I concluded that it all boils down to why you are staying there. If, as you say, you simply want to get over the jet-lag and recharge your batteries for Pattaya the next day, you would be missing Nana's primary and possibly only virtue: that it is right at the pulsating heart of the action. It's not quite a question of location as there are better hotels in the immediate area but, rather, the hotel's pivotal role over a long and blissfully sordid history. Fans say that the character of the hotel itself, oozing sex from every brick and frayed curtain, adds to the excitement. For that unique ingredient, many overlook the variable quality of it's rooms. Be honest with yourself: are you really going to go straight to bed? Or is the excitement of arriving in a new country going to put enough gas in your tank to go out and monger? If the former, get a more comfortable hotel further down Sukhumvit, possibly next to a BTS station so that you can quickly get to the Ekami bus station for the 2hr/120b coach journey to Pattaya - I found it very pleasant and more interesting than a monotonous cab journey. If the latter, you might as well have the Nana experience - the atmosphere of the place should certainly give you a bit of extra pep. Just as an aside, on my last trip I spent a few nights in BKK before moving on to the main part of my trip in Pattaya. The city itself is interesting enough but, frankly, the P4P scene there is pretty crappy compared to Pattaya: the drinks cost more, staff are less friendly, your fellow mongers aren't as cordial, the girls have major attitude, are much more expensive and have little interest in giving you the GFE. In the gogos, there seems to be an epidemic of girls ordering themselves LDs on your bin, happened to me 3 times over a 4 day period and, each time, getting it fixed took some effort and argument. In all the time I've spent in Pattaya, that's only happened to me once, in Paris-A-GoGo, and, upon drawing their attention to it, the staff immediately dealt with it. Pattaya, for all its problems, is miles better; personally, I would give BKK a miss and catch a taxi straight there. Then again, many of the experienced BKK mongers I met were mystified as to why I would want to spent time in Pattaya, so, hey, its all a question of taste, you might love the city of angels.

Don't be a tease, which one?

Thanks Bill, the info you've shared in this thread has been really useful and I'm looking forward to hearing how you found the quality in Pattaya. Don't forget to go out and shag too, though.