Phuket condos under $100,000

Where the cheapest condominiums are

Bang Tao (5), Patong (5), Chalong (2) account for the most projects on this page, and 9 districts appear in the table in all. The cheapest metres on the island are inland: our guide to the cheapest areas puts Chalong at 98,550 THB per square metre, Kathu at 108,214 and Wichit at 111,786, against 161,000 in Bang Tao and 234,561 in Patong.

Our Patong area guide counts 618 priced apartments in Kathu and Wichit, the inland streets behind Patong, at a median of 3,380,000 THB, four in five of them smaller than 35 square metres. That stock fills much of this band, and its tenants are island residents and workers rather than holiday guests.

Beach districts appear too, but through their smallest units. A studio in a building near Bang Tao or Kata can open below $100,000 while the median apartment in the same district costs several times more, so read the size before the address.

Small units and the 35 square metre line

Our guide for Scandinavian buyers in Rawai puts the floor for long-stay letting at around 35 square metres. Below it, a unit works for a short holiday stay or as the owner’s own base, and struggles as a home someone rents for a season.

That makes the licence question decisive at this price. Thai law treats any stay shorter than 30 days as hotel business, so nightly letting needs a building that holds a hotel licence, and the building’s house rules can forbid it anyway. A studio in an unlicensed building is a home or a base, not a nightly let; ask the juristic office for both answers in writing.

Finished buildings at the bottom of the market

9 of the 20 projects here are completed. At this price a finished building deserves the first look: you can stand in the unit, check the view and the noise, and read the building’s accounts to see whether the juristic person can keep it maintained.

Off-plan at this level usually means a small unit paid in stages over two or three years, and the developer’s record carries more weight than the brochure. Ask which of the developer’s buildings are already handed over, and visit one.

Holding a low-priced unit freehold

Freehold ownership of a condominium unit is open to a foreign buyer while the foreign-held share of the building stays within 49 percent, counted by floor area rather than by units. Cheap buildings close to tourist areas are often popular with foreign buyers, so the quota can run out; ask the juristic person for the remaining foreign floor area before you reserve, as our guide to the foreign quota explains.

The money for the purchase must be sent from abroad, and the receiving bank’s FET certificate is what the Land Department checks at registration. Where the quota is full, the usual routes are a registered lease or a unit already registered in foreign hands.

What a low ticket still costs

A low entry price does not shrink the costs that come with any unit: the common-area fee, the sinking fund paid at transfer, furnishing, and management if you let. On a small unit those costs take a larger share of what the unit can earn, and our taxes and fees guide sets out the transfer side.

Resale depth matters too. A unit in a building where hundreds of near-identical studios are for sale competes on price alone when you sell, so the floor, the view and the walk to the beach are worth paying for even at the bottom of the market.

Comparing two cheap units

Put the saleable floor area in square metres next to each price, and ask whether it includes the balcony. Then compare the licence position, the remaining foreign quota, the minutes on foot to the nearest beach, the handover date and the developer’s finished buildings. The cheaper of two units is often the one that loses on three of those six.