Housing Estates - 2011 new house sales

Depends on the quality you want. Every builder will tell you they use the best parts.
I beleive the cheapest way to build and to make sure you have the quality is to supply the parts yourself and do a deal for the labour.
I think about 10,000 baht per square meter is an average with building parts supplied by builder

I stumbled upon Greivous' Nongbbualamphu house for sale in the sale section, looks like a great place especially if he built for the prices mentioned above, and I saw he stated part of his motive to be in Udon city is for his children's education.

Hadn't thought of much it, though there are no retirees living in our project (although I do not have details on 2-3 buyers). A neighbor and I are the oldest at barely past 50, while the rest are in their 40's and 30's, most with children. Proximity to schools and city conveniences was always a factor in our decision. A friend with two children at same school as ours, which is Paramin, currently lives outside the ring road south of town, and it seems quite a long drive for him making two round trips per day to school. We live less than one mile away.

Sept 8 I went to the US embassy consular visit at Napalai, even aged over 50 boy did I ever feel young walking in there, the room was full of white haired AARP members. They look like a different market segment.

Hi rct I'm aged 41 and my children attended Paramin school also. I believe my daughter, Jada, was in the same class as your son.
My previous employment allowed me to fly in and out of thailand regularly and at that stage we wanted to be close to our children's school and friends.
My employment, at the present time, requires me to live in western Australia. I am forward looking to live in Le Cellini in the future with my wife and children.
The house for sale in Nongbua is our house. We originally built it for a holiday house but ended up living there for ten months.
I think it's a good buy as it cost 1.8 million and the sale price is 1.5 million.

"even aged over 50 boy did I ever feel young walking in there"

Don't let that go to your head. When we first moved here, I was 46 and easily one of the youngest in town (at that time). 15 years later, I'm in with the in crowd. Don't worry, you'll get to join soon enough.

Back on topic, what's with the shop houses in front of Celini? Other than Udon's fanciest internet shop, I haven't seen any action there. That's a good location, with all the students that pass by, but maybe the prices are out of range for the typical shop house. Anyone know what the internet shop there charges per hour??

SHOPHOUSES
Wish there was a luxury coffee shop with simple food too! Parrot no idea of internet rates, and what a waste that unit is. Another is "Kumon" tutorial school for elementary school kids. Others are simply residences for now, or sold but unoccupied, they were all sold long ago. Wish I would have boght one but at the time my wife didn't want it as she thought too expensive also. Those are beautiful shophouses inside and out, and given they are 5 meters wide, 13 meters long, nice finishing on four levels (three full plus 1/2 mezzanine) plus the 5th rooftop level, they were a bargain at around 6 million baht. Views on the back are of the pool and estate and they look as nice from the back as they do the front. Can you say that about other shophouses in this kingdom?

Compare the quality and prices of these with that new shophouse row development behind City Lodge, where the price per square meter probably not so different, and the quality, while nice, probably not the same.

During peak after school hours, shopchouse customers' cars park at the entrance to the estate on the red and white stripes (that indicate no stopping at all allowed) which can make it challenging to safely exit the estate by car.

Parrot I was a young pup when arrived in Thailand, age 34. Fortunately life here is keeping me young, vs aging me faster!

Flood impact on Housing in Udon?

Yesterday a very nice yuppie Bangkokian with 3 children was in our estate about ready to buy a house. Sounds in part if not entirely like a hedge against the floods, his current house in on RamIndra Road and also properties and business at central Sukumvit. I wonder if the other estates in Udon are getting similar inquiries and influx of buyers from the south.

At Le Cellini, the first 3 rows (16 houses) are sold out, and of the ten remaining plots in the back soi, "W" bought a choice corner plot and the other corner plot about ready to go. If any buyers are sitting on the fence, might be a call to action, just as Grevious realized - and Grevious your car will need a good scrubbing.....

The prices seems higher because I've heard that the real estate market is in recession and it will boom again after spring 2012.So I'm surprised to see the prices for houses available for sale.!!

Thank's for the tip rct, I'll tell my wife to bring a sponge with her when she visits.
I have heard similar stories of people from bangkok and in the south buying up in Isaan. I think I got in with Le Cellini at a perfect time, Udon is growing fast and there is increased interest in realestate in the area.

contracted with a builder in 2007 to build a 11 X 11 meter single story 121 sq meter 2 bed 2 bath with LR/nicely equipped kitchen/dining room and small office with a completion price of roughly 1.7 million Baht. the contract price was around a million baht with the other 700,000 being all the add-ons to make it livable. These included granite countertops, siemens wash/dryer gas/electric hob, 3 split pack A/C, custom cabinets/closets and a custom attic (3.5 meter X 6 meter drywall storage room... Added an american style pull down attic stair later.. It's over 4 years old now and has had minimal quality control issues. We already had 3.25 rai of land so didn't have to purchase that. Hindsight is always 20/20 so there certainly are things I'd do differently. I'd have made it 12 X 12 meter and monitored some work the contractor did more closely (floor tiling and window fitting).

Our custom cabinets and closets(and later installation of the American style pull down attic stair) was done by an excellent carpenter who is referenced in the construction refs strings..

Being fairly wealthy by Thai standards allows us to build to order. I stayed pretty conservative in building a relatively small place for the TW and me to live in our retirement. single floor with 1 meter wide front door and the front entrance constructed to allow installation of a wheel chair ramp if needed later. We focused on comfort and ease of access during the design. I see other folks who go wild and build 2 floor 300 M2 McMansions which are way beyond what they need.. But, each to their own!!

Hi FrazeeDK, sounds like you've built a home to suit your needs and I'm sure you'll enjoy your retirement with your wife.
Everyone's personal situations are different and as such housing needs differ also.
I built a house in a rural area and it was a quite nice place to stay, the problem I had was the lack of security for my wife and children when I was away and for the house when we were all away.
The second major problem I had was travelling thirty minutes to a bi-lingual school five days per week and our children not being near their school friends.
For these major reasons, and some other considerations, I decided to buy a bigger house in a safer and more city central location.
I Agree with you each to their own and to being happy with what they have chosen.

Retirees tend to be empty nesters who downsize into smaller homes.

People with young children tend to need and or appreciate more space, with closer proximity to schools, and desire other ways to maximize convenience.

SECURITY
I am in Phuket this week dealing with a property crime issue, due to owning a luxury home in an insecure area.

I own two houses here, one has a long term renter in a luxury gated community, no problem. The other was our home prior to moving to Udon, located in Phuket Town for convenience (as stated in paragraph above) however it happens to be a custom built shophouse with no security around, and is a much nicer home than those surrounding it, facing a nun temple and adjacent to the big bookshop in town. We are friendly with all neighbors and one parks in our car port of the empty house so it looks somewhat occupied.

The day after leaving from our last visit, two theives who must have been casing the area, broke in and took some small stuff. Thanks to a friend and maid checking the house, we discovered this within a couple days, however we did not take appropriate action to further fortify the home other than the door in which they entered. Within two weeks, they came back, crawled over the wall and shimmied up the tree to the second floor balcony, broke in through sliding glass doors. They removed a built in washing machine from the 3rd floor, refrigerator, TV, stereo, tennis racquets, coffee maker, Graco baby cot, and even all the bedsheets. The police said on their next visit they would take out the air conditioners and loose furniture (they had already stacked the mattress up against the wall ready to be carried out) and further strip down the house. They also accessed some neighboring shophouses via our roof and took computers etc from those companies.

Unbelievably, thanks to the neighbor parking at our house who noted a suspicious car, he wrote the license number and gave to police and they followed up and actually tracked down the thieves. Later today I have an appointment at the police station to see if I can recover any of the possessions. The thieves are in Phuket prison already (this even was back in January 2011). To be frank, I was so disillusioned that I did not come to Phuket for ten months, however our maid already identified some of our stuff for police. Even this visit I am staying in a hotel not our house. Though the house is now much more fortified throughout, and once we send bedding down we can stay comfortably again.

Final note, one theif is local Phuket, however the lead guy is from Isaarn, a father of three, which is why he even took bedding and baby cot etc.

The latest is our infamous project has only three plots remaining for sale, out of 26 original. Once sold they are built on immediately, not left as an empty lot for an investor with no intention of building. Two houses will have double plots, so only total 24 villas, of which to date 5 of 21 units sold are "farang" owned.

No idea how other projects's sales are faring, and / or if prices are going up due to 2011 increase in average Udon land price or construction costs, etc. Will defer to other experts to posters their knowledge.

Almost sold out, should I be panicking?
Once a housing estate is sold out, apparently from posts I've read in the past, is when the security will disappear, the pool will turn green, a pack of dogs will populate the streets and a motorbike repair shop will set up next door to me.

grievous wrote:Almost sold out, should I be panicking?
Once a housing estate is sold out, apparently from posts I've read in the past, is when the security will disappear, the pool will turn green, a pack of dogs will populate the streets and a motorbike repair shop will set up next door to me.

Unless there is a covenant on the estate, you'll get all that and more.
Aircon workshops
Welding yards
Coffee shops
Noodle shops
Grocery shops.

I don't think you'll get any of that nonsense if you bought into Cellini.

You can't stop someone opening up a glass recycling plant on the land next to the estate.

I was at Mr. Suki the other night. I noticed there is a new football field behind it with the lights pointed right in the windows of the huge very expensive houses there. I believe that's Cellini? The boys were yelling and screaming. Between the noise and the lights I bet there is some pissed off home owners.