JLL released its biannual Global Real Estate Transparency Index and Thailand ranked 38th out of 109 markets covered. This ranking reflects the fact that transparency across Thailand’s real estate markets has improved significantly during the past decade.
It was noted that access and availability of market data has increased, enforcement of planning and land use regulations have improved and domestic investors and investment platforms such as Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) have matured.
“Continued improvement in real estate transparency is good news for Thailand as it should help increase the country’s overall competitiveness,” Suphin Mechuchep, managing director of JLL, said. “Higher transparency levels in other markets correlate directly to investment volumes and translate to lower risk exposure to owners, investors and occupiers when making decisions around real estate investment, sales, acquisitions and leasing.”
Thailand ranked third in the ASEAN for real estate transparency behind both Singapore and Malaysia. Dr Chua Yang Liang, head of South East Asia research, pointed out that half of the countries surveyed in the region are all within the semi-transparent group. This group is currently undergoing major structural change and these countries could benefit by continuing improvements on their transactional processes and regulatory environment.
“For example, Thailand which is at the top of the semi-transparent class could further enhance its regulatory and legal environment by creating a publicly accessible land title registry to facilitate transaction in the real estate market,” Dr. Chua explained. “In Myanmar (ranked 95th globally), one of the key issue is the lack of transparency in sales transactions and toward this end, the government could facilitate investments with a comprehensive and publicly accessible title deed registry, and establish a licensing body to regulate the real estate appraisers and brokers.”
The Asia Pacific region as a whole made the greatest progress globally in terms of real estate transparency during the past two years. JLL’s research showed that it is a diverse region in terms of real estate transparency. Australia was the region’s most transparent real estate market while New Zealand was also classified as ‘Highly Transparent’.
“While the region as a whole has shown improvement, most countries in Asia Pacific, however, are still not transparent,” Jane Murray, head of research, Asia Pacific. said. “There are ongoing examples of poor corporate governance, opaque and corrupt practices and failures in regulatory enforcement that are resulting in serious consequences for society, for business activity and for investment.”
