You’ve reached a point in your life where you are now thinking about buying a property that you can live in well into the conceivable future. After a few days of internal debate, you believe that a townhouse in the city would be an adequate purchase since you don’t really need a lot of space and you want to be close to where you work and the different malls. However, before you start visiting DD Property and typing in “townhouse” in the search bar, there are several different factors that you need to take into consideration.
What Can You Reasonably Afford?
Before you even start looking for a townhouse, you need to determine what sort of payment scheme you would be able to afford in the long term. For example, if you make 35,000 baht per month yet the payments for the house amount to 30,000 baht per month, this just leaves you with 5,000 baht which is far too small to be able to buy enough food for the rest of the month, this doesn’t even take into consideration other expenses such as electricity, water, etc.
As such, it is highly advisable that you contact the bank that you have an account with, determine how much money you can reasonably borrow for a home purchase loan and examine the interest rates and the number of years to pay a particular loan has. While it might be tempting to pick loans that allow you to pay the entire amount within 20 years, these often have extremely high rates of interest. It is advisable that you select loan terms that allow you to pay the entire amount in 10 years with stipulations that allow you to increase the amount you pay in order to reduce the interest rates.
Once you have a budget outlined based on the loan terms that were presented, that’s when you can begin searching since, at this point, you know what you can afford.
Examining Potential Locations
Another factor is the general location that you want to start living in and its proximity to different services. Just because a townhouse may seem affordable in an online listing doesn’t ensure that it is located in an area that is actually nice. The value of land tends to increase significantly the greater its proximity to certain services and locations such as malls, hospitals or business centers.
This has a corresponding impact on the price of the townhouse itself resulting in situations where two townhouses are exactly alike yet one costs two times more because it is located a short walk away from a mall. While it is tempting to get a townhouse close to where you work, since this helps to cut down on the amount of time you spend commuting, you have to ask yourself whether you’re going to be working for the same company 5 years down the line.
If not, then your purchase of a townhouse in that location would be a complete waste since the office of the new company that you would work for could be located much farther away. The best method of selecting a good location is to consider which areas you are familiar with, which locations you frequent for fun (i.e. which malls, bars, etc.) and make your choice based on these areas. You should not choose a location just because it’s close to where you work, you should choose based on where you will be spending most of your time when you’re not at work and where you can relax.
Gated Community or Not?
The last decision you should make is to determine whether you want to purchase a townhouse in a gated community or not. Within Thailand, gated communities have become increasingly popular over the years due to the amount of crime within the city. With their amenities and security, gated communities seem to be an ideal choice; however, there are some factors that do detract from their appeal.
One of the first issues is connected to the monthly association dues that you have to pay. While on the surface this may seem to be reasonable, you have to consider that the amount paid often reaches 3,000 baht or more a month which is an additional added cost on top of the amount that you will be paying the bank for the loan. Not only that, the price of townhouses within gated communities is far higher than those that are located outside of them.
Conclusion
Once you have gone over the steps outline in this article, that is when you can start searching for a townhouse online since at this point you will know what you can afford, where you want it and whether or not a gated community appeals to you.