Selling Real Estate Thailand

Selling real estate in Thailand is not as simple as it can be in North America.

Most NOrth Americans will list with what is called MLS or Multiple Listing Service by selecting a Real Estate Firm to list your property with via one of their licenced real estate agents.  The sale commission is pre-set by MLS. So you need only choose one real estate agent.  There may be differences between Real Estate Companies as to what they actually do to promote your property but generally speaking if they are a MLS and or a franchise it will be far more comprehensive than that of a non MLS listing. A MLS listing is brodcast to all MLS real estate firms which means if an agent in New York has a client looking for a property in Vancouver and your lisitng is in Vancouver the New York agent will know of your listing. There are of course other options to MLS like: selling privatly and paying no real estate commissions or selling and lower commission agencies. For most people a MLS listing is their best bet for quick sale at fair market value.

One of the key ingredients of a professional realtor selling your property is their free valuation of the property which identifies 5 similar properties that have sold in the recent past and adjusting each listings key valuation items values to be more similar to teh valuation items of your listing. Adding the adjusted values together and dividing it by the number of comaprisons gives a close estimated valuation to your property.

Valuing Real Estate In Thailand

A couple of Real Estate companies offer to do a property value assessment but only if the listing is an exclusive listing and often requires payment of listing fees or such. Property sales in Thailand may not be registered at Land Titles for the true value paid for a specific property. It is common place to pay one price, the price to be registred as the purchase price and pay a separate price to owner for the balance of the actual purchase price. This is done to reduce the amount of the property sold tax.  A check on the title (chanote) of a specific property will show what the land value was at the time of the last transfer and can be 20 or more years out of date.  This fact makes it more complicated to determine a fair value for your property. We say look as often property for sale is nothing more than a sheet ofpaper posted to a community bill board or hand painted sign hung in fromnt of the property being sold.  Alternately you can go and look for properties for sale in the area of your property and ask the sellers of their asking price.  Include a number of vacant lots and one can get a feel for a fair market value.  For the most part Thai sellers asking price is firm and non-negotiable. A 2nd approach to property valuation can be to pay a bank or several banks to appraise your property for the purpose of a loan. This can then be shown to prospective purchasers.

Google Search for Bangkok Real Estate Broker

Here is the result of our Google search for a Bangkok real estate brokers as of April 21, 2020. We have included contact dates and conversations with each.

https://www.re/max.co.th/ https://www.remax.co.th/sellersportal.aspx Jan 27 – do not use this company as they will not remove the exclusive agent clause which includes you paying them a commission for the duration of the listing (# of months blank insert) regardless of the source of the sale. 2ndly there was no clause to terminate the contract by owner/seller. Dec 18 – We made initial contact by way of their online contact us form promising 2 days response time. – Their first response was within 6 hours by way of a personal phone call advising they would assign to the nearest English speaking agent. Jan 10 after many emails and nearly a month later we received a copy of the listing agreement. Or reply for required changes was denied. Jan 20 wrote to head office saying if they operated this way in North America they lose their franchise. Jan 23 after several more emails with new representative we have submitted our semi completed alteration of their listing agreement for their acceptance. Alterations included line through clause 4.1, adding cancellation by owner, Rental clause to be for a foreigner purchaser a long term lease of 30 years. After much communication Re/max head office has refused to alter their agreement.  If you asa owner/seller welcome an Exclusive listing this could work for you otherwise … Owner’s/Seller’s BEWARE. WHile same date Jan 23 Re/max agent office has communicated ready and willing now waiting for their return of completed signed agreement for our review. Jan 25 received go ahead sign docs replied needs your company info and signature first Jan 27 Re/Max agent replied can not accept any listing that is not exclusive. 

http://www.century21.co.th/ Siam Property – Jan 3rd 1st contact- 3% open listing, wtg on listing agreement to arrive and review.  Dec 18 2019 – We made first contact by way of their website contact us form promising a 24 hour response. Dec 27, 2019 no response prompted me to rerequest contact this is when I saw the option to create a listing and have now submitted the basic listing information and listing description. Dec 31 1st contact from Century 21. replied with questions and requested a listing agreement for review. Jan 3rd received basic confirmation now waiting for a non-exclusive 3% listing agreement for review. Jan 19 sent century 21 our adjusted and semi – completed, signed  listing agreement for their signature of acceptance. Jan 31 emailed follow-up for signatures to the listing agreement. Jan 31 st received a document with typed name in signature spot and no witness requested it be signed and witnessed and returned. Reply was they were electronic signatures. Feb 4th Century 21 photographer came to the house and took photos. Feb 11 published listing URL requested. Feb 18 all related published listing URLs requested. Feb 18 rece3ived istig link https://www.thailand-property.com/4-bedroom-house-for-sale-in-khlong-chan-bangkok_4655761 requested description fixes and other platform URLs Century 21 promoted on. Feb 19 they advised they promote on DD and C21 and We again requested URL for the listing and related websites. Feb 22 the century 21 listing on ddproperty.com map is incorrect please fix. Feb 24 C21 says to not worry they will correct it in discussions with an interested buyer. We request they confirm its being fixed or if they want us to provide a map picture.

https://www.thailandproperty.com/  NOTE: a DOTPROPERTY LISTING GETS EXPOSURE HERE:  Jan 5, 2020 WASTED OVER AN HOUR OF MY TIME  As this site is only available to professional real estate agents (for a FEE) and although accepted as below my listing was not accepted it has since been removed without so much as an email advising of same. Dec 23 2019 – website says FREE listing. Had to use their contact us form as it would not accept our address field input even from their selected defaults. Also questioned why is their  dashboard item labeled invoices if the listing service is FREE. Reply received within 2 hours confirming as they are a new service the listing is at this time FREE and they fixed the address issue and provided other sites bahtsold and dotproperty below. The street address is still that of the default derived from Google Maps which is correct but incomplete. Our related property ad went live Dec 23rd 2019. Feb 21st a SRE listing uploads automatically to this site URL unknown.

http://bahtsold.com/ an online classifieds service. Dec 23 2019 contacted them via their contact us form requesting confirmation of the costs for an real estate ad and sale from said ad. Dec 27th, 2019 no contact back.

http://dotproperty.co.th/ Post your property Ad for FREE. Dec 23, 2019 account created email address verified. EMail verification did not get processed so did a SMS verification and it processed immediately. It is now live with 4 pictures of 15 allowed. No translation service from English to Thai.  listing URL at time of publication. Owner can edit the listing from the owners dashboard.

https://www.dotproperty.co.th/en/5-bedroom-house-for-sale-in-bangkok-noi-bangkok_4496769

SRE also automatically added listing to dotproperty with no known URL to listing.

https://www.fazwaz.com/ a listing platform – no commissions or fees. Dec 30 2019 – signed up and submitted listing. Dec 3rd, 2019 received listing agreement, reviewed and sent back with revision for include termination “or by owner in writing”. Jan 19 sent our signed copy of the listing agreement for their countersignatures of acceptance at 3% commission. Jan 31st printed listing duly signed by FazWaz. Asking the question what’s next? Feb 11 review of their listing found things like the street view link not our street plus other minor fixes reported for correction. Feb 14 went to our FazWaz account to review and adjust part of the listing and made some changes they did not immediately show up on the listing so have to check back later. Feb 15 made some changes to the listing text and added a bunch of pictures. When editing a FazWaz listing including <p> after a paragraph and at the start of a new paragraph breaks the listing up into proper paragraph with headings. Close the text with </p>. Feb 15 updated title and added the balance of 15 allowable pictures. Requested URL to related listings on other platforms. Feb 21 FazWaz confirmed all other websites listings are inked back to the originalFazWaz listing. Listing URL as of Feb 11 2020.

https://www.fazwaz.com/property-sales/5-bedroom-villa-for-sale-in-khlong-kum-bangkok-u26775

FazWaz  also promotes on www.baanthai.co.th – See Fazwaz.com www.108siam.com – See FazWaz.com – Qqq.baancoin.com – See FazWaz.com

https://www.era.co.th/  – DON”T WASTE YOUR TIME UNLESS YOU WANT AN EXCLUSIVE LISTING AND ARE WILLING TO PAT THEM COMMISSIONS REGARDLESS OF THE SOURCE OF THE SALE.  Jan 23rd first approach for interest in non-exclusive listing and request for agreement for our review. Included picture and album link and property description link. Feb27 follow-up email sent as no response. Feb 6th 2nd follow-up email sent. Feb 11th still no reply. Perhaps there are no ENglish speaking agents there. Feb 12 phoned an office and received a different email address and forwarded listing info email requesting a copy of their listing agreement for review. Feb 17th appointment to see property for next Sunday afternoon. Feb 19 requested a copy of the listing agreement for review before the meeting. Feb 20 reviewed the exclusive listing and replied with required changes to their exclusive listing and requested an open listing to review. Feb 21 we are advised of ERA only accepts exclusive listings so beware of the commission clauses as there are several of them in their contract and  they make you responsible to pay ERA commissions even if your mother buys the property from you. We cancelled the Sunday meeting with their rep. Feb 27 ERA rep called for appointment, I advised OK to proceed 3% on completion of sale transaction and money received by us or send me an open agreement to review.

https://www.bangkokfinder.com/ – Jan 23 emailed for a copy of agreement for listing. Commissions, cancellations, etc.Feb 15 no response to above emails.  Feb 18 completed an online listing form with a message we want to review and accept their listing agreement before listing goes live. Feb 24 requested a copy of their agreement. Feb 24 received an exclusive listing agreement. Requested they send me an open listing agreement as many listing now exist. Feb 24 received confirm no agreement till a potential buyer is shown the property and only then is a form signed naming the potential buyer the location and the commission of 3%.

https://www.knightfrank.co.th/ – Jan 24th from their website contact us form sent our canned email contact for their response. Jan 24th response received “ KF Thailand is only concentrate on condo in CBD and Sukhumvit area.”.

https://www.cbre.co.th/ – CBRE is the first and so far the only realtor company with a corruption paragraph in their agreement.  Feb 11 they will not adjust the corruption paragraph to state “seller being the cause” which leaves their standard wording, in my opinion, to allow them to cancel the listing by the corruption clause and we would have to pay them the commission.  Jan 24th emailed them our canned listing email. Jan 28th they advised they need a copy of our chanote to create and forward listing agreement. Jan 30th they sent agreement. Feb 11 confirmed the listing is non exclusive and can be cancelled at any time. Requested confirm commission is 3% and earned when their agent completes a sale and forward copy of the agreement as per their email of Jan 28th. 

https://www.findthaiproperty.com/ – Jan 25th – sent our email contact via their website contact us form. Jan 27 sent our follow-up email. Feb 4th returned the agreement with changes to the anti-corruption commission due only if owner/seller is responsible and added a termination clause to page 3. Waiting for CBRE to return signed changed agreement.

https://www.ddproperty.com/ – Jan 25th – closed on weekends and stat holidays – no contact us form or email address ph 022049555 email from message machine    ????.ddproprty.com can’t understand it on the phone message. Noted a listing with Century 21also lists on this site as part of their service. And a listing from SRE also lists hereon.

http://bkkhomeseeker.com/ Jan 25 – emailed them our listing contact email. Feb 1 sent our 7 day follow-up. Feb 9, our 14 days follow up asks .. it would appear you are not interested in listing our property. 

https://senseproperty.com/  Jan 25 – emailed them by their website contact us form our canned email listing inquiry message

https://www.siamrealestate.com/  – SRE Jan 25 sent our canned listing email by way of their website contact us form. Went to [email protected] Jan 27 received a request to add our listing to their platform I replied as to listing agreement for commissions etc.? Jan 31 we reviewed and returned doc for their acceptance.  #3. non exclusive, #8 “a sale” to “an active sale” , #10 added usufruct, #13 crossed out completely. They also post listing to: thailand-property, dot-property, hipflat, dd.property …. will have to see if basic listing includes this and their market valuation. Feb 1st, received an email confirming changes to the pepr agreement approved by email is the proper doc over the website listing agreement and listed property, emailed SRE with listing form discrepancies.  Feb 1 rcvd the listing # as 18084. Now wait response to discrepancies and confirm the paper agreement overrules the website agreement. Feb 4th rcvd link to listing: 

https://www.siamrealestate.com/detail/by/refcode/BKHS22025X/. Feb 12 rcvd confirmation of changes requested as done. Feb 12 sent them our link to the Thai Language version and waiting for the URL to the Thai language listing. Feb 15 Listing has english language followed by Thai language. Requested to confirm if we can edit the listing info and sent a couple of minor changes to the wording. Feb 18 followed up as changes not made and requested acct related to listing email address and PWD.Feb 19 – All listing edits are done by SRE. Feb 21 requested all SRE  listings of our property on all platforms other than SRE. Uploaded automatically to no URLs to listing thereon. 

https://www.hipflat.co.th/en, https://www.ddproperty.com/en  https://www.dotproperty.co.th/en   https://www.thailand-property.com/

https://www.bangkokfinder.com/ – Jan 23 sent our canned email for listing. Feb 1 sent 7 day follow up email. Jan 3rd received their 1st email saying complete listing submission and they will do agreement when they have serious buyers. We replied that we want to see an agreement before there is a buyer and before listing. Feb 7 – no agreement rcvd .. requested they confirm commission not greater than 3% and how to terminate/remove a listing.

https://www.hipflat.co.th/en – listing is created automatically by listing with SRE. 

Due to COVID19 outbreak there has been no actions on our property listed above as of Apr 21, 2020.