can123 wrote:I have been studying Thai property sites for at last four years and have memorised a great many house prices. Preben Prezman's site is still live although he no longer works as an estate agent. You will not be surprised to learn that one of the properties on his site , which failed to sell at just under 4 Million baht, is not cheerfully advertised at nearly 4.4 million baht by another firm in Udon Thani. Utter madness ! Who could possibly be stupid enough to deal with these people ? They have no business acumen and are just looking for mugs.

I've seen these wildly varying prices too. Theres another house on one website for B10m, been advertised for over a year & recently advertised on another website for B12.2m. Its just nuts, particularly when in my opinion its probably only worth about B5m

Rubber trees.
Mrs average gross Dec/Jan was 210k pm. Net profit per month 120k. Just turned down an offer of 4.5 mil for a 28 rai plot of mature trees. Farming ain't that bad...
There is nothing in Udon a 4.5 mil investment would bring, that could compete with what a well functioning and run rubber plantation brings WHEN prices are half decent. Rubber prices are currently decent, not bad (100% better than 12 months ago) but nowhere near record levels from 6 years ago...

I'm holding the line at 5 rai for 500k. anywhere within my foghorn mouth distance from UT.. which prob means.. about 20 km. Looking for a "hot money" requirement as my wife calls it. Agreeing with can123.. building our own. pointing in the right direction etc. Trees can grow and veggies can be stolen while we sell our own reasonably priced UT house. If we find somewhere with a shed already there.. we can camp in it. 5 year plan. Meanwhile I sadly report I believe our shop down 15k AGAIN this Feb.. which would mean 75k lost of cash incomes over 5 months. JUST clearing overhead this month. No luxuries. 100% thai income.

I feel for the wifes family, good hard workers, quite a nice piece of land they have. alas every time they changed crop there seemed to be a crash in the price, time after time. so six years ago they decided as they are both in their late 70's that they would plant rubber. lucky dad is a retired teacher with a government pension so they can manage. but it must be heartbreaking being a farmer. a few years back they put 10 rai of cassava in, then the price crashed to a few baht per kilo, needless to say it was hardly worth harvesting. as I say they got lots of land and half is not being used, simply because they don't know what to plant. good to hear rubber is back up, last year they even considered cutting down the 20 rai of rubber just for wood. glad they didn't if the price is getting better.

Papa is wise.. its NOT easy being a farmer at this time.. many illusions out there.. I believe its finger nail hanging time for Thai business stuff. A contributor talked about the learning curve of people eating in MORE cafes now.. ( I cant call them restuarants). Perspective.. opposite our shop is a NEW BBQ fish player. I popped to my corner shop.. buying my beer there for two years.. I ask them, you buy fish from new player? They say NO.. he have no water to wash hand or toilet.. just go in garden.. Thais are learning.. they bought their fish from a place 2km away.. and the NEW fish BBQ people.. have 4 fish to eat tonight as a family. Tough times ahead.. NOT seen a lot of farang business post here tho..

The proof is in the pudding as they say, the wife has had her best day ever today, I'm very proud of her, but as I (the contributor) was saying, people are becoming far more aware of hygiene than ever before, it can only be a good thing providing they don't get stupid like we have in the west. Surprisingly she also seems to be acquiring more Farang customers too, I guess the combination of cleanliness and her ability to speak English is working in her favour.

vincemunday wrote:The proof is in the pudding as they say, the wife has had her best day ever today, I'm very proud of her, but as I (the contributor) was saying, people are becoming far more aware of hygiene than ever before, it can only be a good thing providing they don't get stupid like we have in the west. Surprisingly she also seems to be acquiring more Farang customers too, I guess the combination of cleanliness and her ability to speak English is working in her favour.

I'm with Vince all the way with this.. and VERY pleased for his mrs.. he n I.. dont get on.. not important.. but his wife's cafe is superbly clean and for sure she speaks good English..n ignores our petty rubbish.. wish she sold Chang! Today OUR income WAY up.. its a real see saw at this time.. who knows..

Round our village the building boom is continuing unabated - as long as it is on the main road. across from our house an old thai house was sold middle last year (usual reason, debts). Already demolished and 2 shop houses built on the site. Not sure why - there are plenty of empty shop houses in the village. Off the main road, family has an old house for rent -just rented again, but empty before that for 6 months. On the farms we drive past every day, last wet season only about half the rice fields were planted up, the rest are just untouched, particularly the more waterlogged ones. F-in-L gave up rice growing last year, for first time in his life.

The only growing business going on now is filling in fields to make building plots. Also,seen many medium size ponds dug (about 1 rai in size) and then seemingly abandoned, rumour was they were for crayfish. Also this last week saw 2 ponds dug on a slope well above the water table - still dry - cannot imagine why as no water source unless pumping up hill from the waterlogged paddies - but that's surely going to be uneconomic.

Other family business is selling freshly killed ducks and chickens. Demand for ducks fell slowly last 6 months, and chicken sales slumped after new year. Guess the rice money has gone.

Thursday income.. way down! Hoping for a better weekend and for us the school hols bode well as thai parents work and we child mind. I did a quick day time tour yesterday.. counting lilly white tourists. I see the entire block of bars opposite Irish Clock razed. Not been there for years but wont those mostly run/owned by Thais? Anyone know what the business plan is there?

Liam Dale wrote:Thursday income.. way down! Hoping for a better weekend and for us the school hols bode well as thai parents work and we child mind. I did a quick day time tour yesterday.. counting lilly white tourists. I see the entire block of bars opposite Irish Clock razed. Not been there for years but wont those mostly run/owned by Thais? Anyone know what the business plan is there?

Condo / Apt block ... according to Dao .

On the subject of business here , its not easy after navigating and wading thru the legalities and mountains of red tape licensing registrations work permits etc etc the major problems are still to come ..WITH STAFFING and finding a good location that works ...

As mentioned by Dui ...finding reliable staff here is virtually impossible , at best try to fine 1 or 2 good honest reliable ones (if lucky) then except all others will be transient ... doesnt matter how much you pay in most cases Thais move on after a short period of time .. except that and plan for it , plan on them dissapearing for days for family events , granny dying at least 3 times per year etc ... turning up late the list goes on ... remain aware of all this and have a back up plan where others can cover in all eventualities... staffing is a nightmare end of story and one of the reasons our new restaurant has taken so long to get moving , now its finished im dreading actually doing it knowing all what ive just ranted about !!!

Think carefully about the business structure , be diverse sell as many products and or services as possible both retail and wholesale if poss , define your market and most of all keep your overheads a slow as poss ... sounds obvious but many businesses here fail due to over staffing as Thais love to over employ and get family members a job with in the bizz , 8 staff where really 4 will suffice .. we do not / will not employ any family members as they always take liberties and one day your gonna have to sack em ...i do a lot of the driving to Bkk n Deliveries and Dao does jobs so we dont need to over employ... we have just taken on 2 staff and training now prior to the restaurant opening ... hopefully weve been lucky with these 2 time will tell

Know how the bizz income is coming in ... We can check on a month to month basis how our bizz customer footfall is operating by that Thai or Expat this is done via the pos system ... last month 72% Thai trade / 28% Expat n other (Lao)... in our experience the Thai business is our core thats how it was planned from day one so we market towards that and at this period of time it appears its the Thais we see with the deposable income to buy our products n services ...simple the Thais we see appear wealthy there are millions of them WE ARE IN THAILAND AFTER ALL and they like what we offer at the price ..nothing wrong with low customer footfall but high income ... a great formula imo ...

I raise my hat to everyone trying to operate any kind of business here especially the expats ...IT IS NT EASY THATS FOR SURE .

DM
3DM Udon Co., Ltd. | website:
http://3dmudon.com

See us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Udon ... 80?fref=ts

DM,thanks for an infromative and honest post.

Staffing,well we can honestly say that that's THE main problem here,and the willingness to learn a trade,or anything for that matter.I've given up like i said before,not going to have all the stress trying to teach anyone anything,i had it..sorry to say.
My wife and her dauther is now 95% in total charge of the Restaurant,learn by our own..we have been in busniess now for 10 years and we are happy to say that once the customers have found us,they to 90% beckome our returncustomers,so i guess we have done something right..And i have to say that our customers are second to none,they know what they can expect from Nok,yes it can at times take it's time to get the food,but as long as the customers know that i can choose to stay and wait or go,it's for most part ok..

I really hope that you DM don't have the same staffing problem as many of us running a buisness have,i wish you all the best.

Best wishes from Nok Restaurant..Dui/Nok/Åm

Well written DM.. we operate solely me n her.. tried a couple of staff but the concept of "you can go online n play games ANYTIME and AS LONG AS YOU CAN if there isnt something to actually do with running the shop.". Doesnt work.. we found they had Felcro sown onto their butt cheeks. Wanted to factor go 24 hours.. not worth it. Elec down to 6,400 this month.. we fight the fights we can with overhead.. and my Mrs gets that.

Stevie Boss T bar yesterday told their was another Falang IC in Udon.. anyone can confirm where and/or name n bits? I heard he said Jan his worth month ever at same game.. comforting/not comforting to hear parallel tale.. but you know what I mean.

Sorry,me misspelling ALOT..I'm going to have someone do the spellchecking then myself..don't trust myself OR maybe i'm going to blame the Keyboard...proofreading/spellchecking...sorry for my above post

My wife has been lucky, as she's got busier her nephews have stepped up to the plate and helped her out, a lot. She pays them but the security of keeping the business in the family has been a real boon, they have proven to be far more reliable than what it seems you guys are having to put up with. On the odd occasion where one of them hasn't been able to work because of exams or something, her brother has covered. Thank heavens for family I say.

vincemunday wrote:My wife has been lucky, as she's got busier her nephews have stepped up to the plate and helped her out, a lot. She pays them but the security of keeping the business in the family has been a real boon, they have proven to be far more reliable than what it seems you guys are having to put up with. On the odd occasion where one of them hasn't been able to work because of exams or something, her brother has covered. Thank heavens for family I say.

I agree with Vince.. family helps family.. My wife told me this when I began.. sadly we dont have any! Son of wife has chosen to go peddle his own bike for 8k a month at KK.. rather than work with us for 15k for starter... sort of caught me/us out.. no issues... but early signs of culture change as young ones break away.. bit of a bummer cos he owes me 120k! lol

OR he thinks we suck! Extended family = no options cept 1 katoy. Sadly.. when I employed before there were what we we will call.. "issues".. with this aspect of human nature.. issues as in.. lies, cheating, stealing, unreliability, theft, trust, loss, BS.. not much..