DDproperty hosted yesterday a stage inviting real estate gurus to discuss their outlooks for property markets both domestic and overseas at Renaissance Hotel.
A British-born CEO of PropertyGuru Group – Asia’s leading online property portal and the owner of DDproperty.com No.1 property portal in Thailand, Steve Melbuish first introduced what the company’s vision is and how he sees the light amid global economic darkness followed by the gurus gathering to give advices on how to succeed in property market, especially in overseas.
“Speaking of a global slowdown, especially in the mainland China, the world economy seems to be bearish; still, we have seen opportunities in Asian nations, and the interest is now in South East Asia, which Thailand included. We believe that the regional consortium between nations (ASEAN) can make a difference in the real-estate scenario,” said Steve.
Steve Melbuish
Moreover, the forum held the session of Panel Discussion; gurus on stage were Benjamin Tan, Associate District Director, PropNex, Singapore, Marque Tan, Business Development Director, Huttons, Singapore, Frank Khan, Head of Residential Department, Knight Frank Thailand, Lim Eng Chong, Director and Funding Partner, Henry Butcher Malaysia Group, Jessica Cheng, CEO, Lion Real Estate, Taiwan, and Terrence H.K. Law, Deputy Project Director, Centaline, Hong Kong; the session was moderated by Winston Lee, Regional Head of New Projects of PropertyGuru.
This advisory section was to give developers the ideas on ways to market their projects more efficiently and effectively in overseas. The thematic answer is to encourage domestic developers to do more research on what overseas customers want in Thailand’s property market. The demands are quite diverse, for example, Singaporean buyers are looking for a property not only for investment purpose but also surrounding lifestyles given, and they often buy off-plan projects to be speculative. So, developers should offer them an attractive yearly return at least six percent.
From left: Winston, Frank Khan, Marqus Tan, Terrence, Lim Eng Chong, Jessica Chang and Benjamin Tan
“Some regulations should be relaxed as well for foreigners to buy a property in Thailand. They prefer to have freehold rights and prices should be the same for both domestic and international buyers,” suggested by Frank Khan from Knight Frank. And the focal point for developers is to be highly straightforward about the project by presenting factual information to gain trust from foreigners. If you do an aggressive sales or marketing, they may leave you there instead of picking yours.
The conclusive advice from all on-stage gurus is warning developers to always check the temperatures of the market if they want to expand their sales into overseas stage including to study local purchasing demands and find the right agent to do the right things.
This article is written by Chaiyasit Bunnag, a content writer at DDproperty. For more information please contact via chaiyasit@ddproperty.