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The guy is not being strident or abusive or even argumentative. He's provoking debate and that's what he's getting and this could be a very useful thread. I looked into some things there last November and got a sales pitch from a developer's staff who had scale models set up in Mike's Mall, I think. I strolled through their displays and picked up some brochures and listened to their banter. In addition to the points made in this thread I recall one other thing being told to me that has my attention for these upscale developments: A farang cannot own property in Thailand so a "house" is not possible without going through the process of setting up a corporation and having shareholders and whatever else is needed. A condo is supposed to be possible without all that hassle. BUT. I was told this only proves true if 60% (51%?) of the condo units in a condo complex are Thai owned. If it is fewer, then the property is farang owned and legal problems arise. I have no details beyond them telling me that -- and of course they assured me that THEIR complex had already sold enough units to Thais that there was no problem. It is attention getting, though, for upscale places. Where will they find enough well to do Thais to populate the 60%?

I can't see an advantage of tying up money for 2 years on something that, truly, may never finish. Why not buy something already finished and up for resale? You have some interest in reselling from an investment perspective so if you buy something being resold, don't you gain some education into that process? I've looked into this and a LOT of BMs on the ground there say a ton of development is going on and many already finished units are sitting vacant. This is not encouraging.

See, this is just sad. Guys are on this website to help and be helped. When it turns into an advertising venue then there needs to be backup testimonials or you can't know what's what. Hmmm. In that context, maybe it's not sad. Gary just saved some guys from getting hurt. Two sides to every story of course, but until one sees some happy customers weigh in, one believes the long time BM.

Would not the Expats Club have some names?

I think there are several threads recommending dentists in Pattaya. You should maybe email the dentists in question and ask what they do.

There is a BM named drilldr who is a dentist and has posted helpful stuff. You might want to search for his posts, if you can. I kinda recommend against a PM to him if your questions will be extensive. I'm sure he's not a BM here with the intent of finding himself answering a queue of such questions. He has posted good stuff and I have seen him ask questions and get answers so he may even post to your thread. It's a good board. Guys try to give as much as they get.

Lots and Lots and Lots of websites devoted to retirement. Much has been said in threads like this but there are newbies encountering the threads all the time so some mention of new things in threads that will be searched for is probably a good thing. 1) The whole world of retirement is one where those Lots and Lots and Lots of websites are both valuable and way too easily ignored. The reason they will be ignored is parents. An ageing single guy looks at how his parents are getting by or got by in retirement and says to himself . . . I make more money than they ever did and they aren't doing too bad. Retirement is going to be sweet!!! And so they ignore websites that advise a lot of caution. 2) The world ageing single guys face for retirement is NOTHING like what your parents lived in. Planning retirement by or finding reassurance in how your parents are living or lived before they passed on is a completely incorrect perspective. You Have No Database Of Observations About Retirement That Has Any Value. The world has changed. 3) Your parents probably had a safe inflation-indexed pension. Few single guys looking at retirement coming in the next 10 years will. Period. Full stop. They are going away. The government pensions will resist the erosion influences to their last breath, but eventually even government pensions will fade away. If you are close enough to retirement or on retirement RIGHT NOW, you are on the cusp of this development. Your pension may or may not out last you. If you are looking at retirement in 5-10 yrs, your pension will probably NOT outlast you. 4) The internet has changed the world. You have better information about this sort of thing than your parents ever did. You can find better deals. You can be aware of advantages that are temporary and require fast action. And you discovered guys are retiring in Pattaya. All hail the internet.

The OP's flag says he's not American, but this may still matter. Whatever you do, archive your pictures online before leaving Thailand. Digicams and laptops are often examined by US customs for illegal photos. If you have taken pictures of girls who could even remotely be thought rather young, your life is potentially destroyed. Dump all such pictures before flying if this is a possible issue in your country.

Do you guys know if the Expats Club recommended (or sponsored) group plan addresses explicitly the critical point made by the OP? Namely, do those plans exclude pre-existing conditions? And if so, how strictly? In the US, the big issue with healthcare is group plans vs non group plans. There is a difference in premium payments, yes, but a huge (and quiet) difference is group plans (through an employer) cannot cancel a person for making claims (getting sick) and they generally are also not allowed to exclude for pre-existing conditions. So . . . data?

Good data, Ron. We are data intensive on this board. How did you dispose of your living quarters in the home country before the move? Are you still in possession of a living place you do not live in there?

A poster above described how to defeat keyloggers. Cut and paste from a notepad that you open and onto which you type many random characters including those you need for a password, but not typed in order. The keylogger won't know which of the random characters is the password. Cut/paste to the password window. This does work. C.

Try boiling hot water. Clear out the water present first and pour it in. Amazing stuff.

My 2 cents worth. 1) The final comment indicates the poster is one smart cookie. A lot of people investing in anything wander into excellent deals, make a lot of money and then conclude to themselves that they are geniuses. Luck is not genius. Trying to do it a second time has been the source of a godawful number of losses throughout history. 2) I deal with a lot of US citizens who live outside the US and my observations suggest that the number one source of income for "white collar" (don't know what the UK calls this, it just means non manual laborers) expat retirees is consulting through the internet for their former employers. They review documents, contribute to writing proposals for competitive bids, provide direct support to customers and sometimes even do a trip back to some big meeting (all expenses paid). They can wind up working maybe 10 hours a month and get paid 25% of their previous income -- with an overseas tax exclusion on it. 3) Think Singapore. It's a couple of hours south of BKK and it is English speaking and a very rich country. There may be ways to make money there while living in Thailand.

This is a big deal. For Americans, lobbying your congressman to allow Medicare to pay medical expenses outside the US is a good thing. If you're under age 65 it means nothing, but there are huge US expat retiree communities on the pacific beach in Mexico and they are clamoring hard for this. It would help in Thailand long term, too. As for pre-age 65, I think you have to shop around and shop hard. It should be possible to find a policy that covers you, but you will have to pay more for it. There would also be some merit in knowing just what an angioplasty procedure costs at a Thai hospital so you know exactly what you're setting yourself up for if you try to self insure.

Well, hell, that's just because your guy had not been through the training course yet in what the proper process is the company wants used. In nosing around I've come to suspect that farangs find a place to live in Jomtien or Pattaya the same way they find jobs. By knowing someone who knows of something worth living in.

This is a good point. A lot of discussion and analysis goes into this by mutual fund companies chasing retiree bux. You can fall behind the "normal lifestyle" of the future. The conclusion seems to be that perceived poverty is best avoided by creating your own inflation rate -- which is lower than the published one. Medical care is the biggy, so quit smoking if you smoke, drink in moderation, exercise, lose weight . . . all the usual health stuff. The incentive becomes not just health, but money. I saw one analysis that said a 50 yr old who quits smoking can add a travel vacation per year to his annual activity schedule starting at age 60. The end of cigs and dodging some relentlessly inflating health care costs funds it.

You know, I don't blame the guy at all for quoting this in his real estate advocacy. Guys in real estate are in sales and sales guys who spend 20 years being enthusiastic and brimming with sunny optimism simply cannot turn it off. Their livelihood depended on them projecting confidence and that's a habit that will be with them their whole lives. It's not dishonest or insanity. It's just . . . mindset. Not that I at all dispute "insane". Just in a moderated way. And let's remember that . . . I think when Paul Volker was taking a sledgehammer and killing inflation a few decades ago, there was a brief few months 30 Yr Treasury bonds yielded 15%. Yeah. It's true. You could have bought 30 yr T-Bonds and locked in a US government guaranteed 15%/yr for 30 yrs. The government will pay on those for another few years because I think it was in the 1980's that the period took place. So not only 10% is possible. There is actually a time on record that 15% was guaranteed. But no way in hell I would bet even a single dollar that I can get 10%+/yr every single year for the next 30-40 yrs. I expect to lose money some retirement years, even beyond my living expenses. I'm confident that I am just not smart enough to make money on investments every single year for 30-40 years.

Soi7 lives in Pattaya apparently at a low level of spending and he should be listened to because he's there and he does it. I recommended above that this guy go home because I focused 100% on the following quote : It's not the 2000 baht a month that is the issue. It's the dodgy heart with no medical insurance. The risks are pretty high of finding himself with chest pains in the hospital and being asked how he will pay for treatment. With no insurance and credit card issues, he might be shown the door and dead 24 hrs later. This guy has no business outside the UK's national health care plan. He has to go home and get a job. This issue could be 20 or 30 yrs of life chopped off him. If he puts away some money and does his homework and figures out healthcare, then he can return and read Soi7's posts on how to get by happily. With a heart problem, I can't see how this works without insurance.

The answer to this question is 1) Trailer parks and 2) Medicare Florida has been called "God's waiting room" because of how it attracts elderly retirees. Next time you drive through there, count the trailer parks. That's what a Social Security check pays for. FYI within about 20 yrs private pensions will be rare to non-existant. Government pensions will have been scaled back, even for current retirees, to almost zero. This will be global and the result of demographics worldwide. Too many old folks and not enough young folks to pay for them. Take care of yourself for the years to come. No one else will. As for getting 10% guaranteed every year for the next 30-40 years . . . in any investment at all . . . I'm not smart enough to do that.

Well, my compliments on resisting what must have been the temptation to lash out at my possibly provocative reply. I should have toned that down, but we all have our moods and that one was a bad one from me. I don't have a feel for Thai inflation. I use a generic 3% number globally for it, for no good reason beyond it being a US historical average. There is reason to believe it will be higher in the years to come because of oil depletion, but only time will tell. Your 4% speculation for Thailand may be right, especially if you travel from Thailand now and then and get hit with the effect of fuel costs. And, of course, healthcare. Without arguing the likelihood of 10%/yr on real estate, let's look at what inflation does even to that 10% number. You specify 500K at 10%. That's 50K pretax. Suppose you underspend that to "live like a king" in Thailand at 30K. Don't know how your real estate deal gets taxed, but let's yank 15% of it as an estimate of taxes. So you keep 85% of 50K or 42.5K per year after taxes. Of that, in year 1, you spend 30K. You therefore save 12.5K. Now in year 2 you have 512.5K at 10% and generate 51.25K pretax. Post tax (15%) you have 43.5K to spend. But we now have to increase the 30K living expenses by 4% inflation. That's $1200 more or 31200 for the year. Notice how your income went up (43.5 - 42.5K) 1K but your spending went up 1.2K? You fell behind. Even at 10% pretax. Over thirty years, this is not linear. It compounds and gets worse. You eat more and more of that 13.5K cushion you had in year 1 and then you start eating your principal. Don't know how bad that gets over 40 yrs. 10% is a lot to expect, but 500K isn't very much. I suspect the money, even at 10%, will expire before you do. But I haven't crunched the numbers. 30K is 6% of 500K. That's a high extraction rate for an early retiree.

Not quite sure how one trades real estate in Las Vegas from Thailand. Also not quite sure how real estate will do in Las Vegas 20-25 yrs from now, given that an early retirement scenario is usually 30 yrs. The guy in the OP's article was 37. That is more like a 45 yr window over which you are asking Las Vegas real estate to perform at 10+%. If someone retires at age 40 and decides to fund it by withdrawing 10% per year from their nestegg, wherever it is invested, I'm pretty sure this will not turn out to be a disaster. I say this because I am pretty sure he'll run out of money while still young enough to find a job and avoid starving.

Good call, Bob. I also frowned at the ads showing up here, but then I have to admit that down in the meeting and rideshare section there are some folks advertising their taxi service, and to judge from the testimonials they are providing good service (and I was one of the testimonials so I know it was legit). It's valuable to BMs to have those ad threads there. Anyway, Dean offers something that may have benefit to BMs. Caveat Emptor. I guess as long as he asked permission and it doesn't explode to dominate the whole board he's not doing anything bad and may be selling something that could help out a BM or three. Shrug.

In general, this guy has no business outside the UK's national health care program. Full stop. Period. End of story. He Has To Go Home. Once there he has to get a job. People need to embrace the concept that it is possible to fall into the following category: I Cannot Afford To Retire And Live In Thailand. Usually the phrase "everyone cannot do it" describes something psychological. It can also describe someone without enough money. www.fireseeker.com is one of the best retirement calculators I've seen. Spend a few hours with it. It is educational, but you do have to give it a few hours of concentration. FIRE = Financial Independence, Retiring Early. The calculator will tell you how reasonable that is. I think Gary above pointed out that it's a very hard thing to do without a nest egg.

There are usually subtle ways of doing this kind of thing. A popular maneuver over the years for moving large numbers out of the US and avoiding the US law that requires reporting of quantities > $XXXXXX (I think it used to be $10,000) was to buy rare stamps. The stamps can go in an envelope in your pocket. Then you fly to Switzerland, walk in a stamp shop, and sell. There is some friction and commission loss in the process, but you get the bulk of the money moved. The reason this work(s, ed) was because the law says it is illegal to transfer "monetary instruments". Stamps aren't such. Similar maneuvers are possible with art pieces. I've also seen banks in one country accept assets in another as collateral for a loan. You borrow, you pocket, you walk. The borrowed from bank makes the necessary effort to collect. Banks have ways of doing things private citizens can't access. They would get their money. Anyway, there are almost always ways of doing this kind of thing. And btw, just as an aside, if you have found a place where you make 50% on your money, I'm not sure you should be anxious to take money away from that place.

FYI I've driven all over the world. Italy is worst of everywhere, but only slightly. I don't intend to ever drive in Pattaya. I've seen too much insanity there. Seriously, think about what you deal with trying to cross Second Road on foot. Just close your eyes and think about it.