Thursday, January 2, 2003
Consider Thailand
Posted: January 2, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Doug Casey
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
In southern Thailand, assassins of police are paid up to 50,000 baht (roughly U.S. $1,200) for each cop they take out, an indication of how far the dollar goes in some places. On the bright side, Thai police are notoriously corrupt. But so are most police outside the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.
This should not, however, give you the wrong impression of Thailand, a country where I've spent a lot of time in the past, and am spending several months this fall and winter. Thailand is probably the mellowest, friendliest and certainly one of the cheapest countries on the face of the planet. While, in the big scheme of things, low living cost isn't a major consideration for most of us, I've got to admit that it's a pleasure paying $3 for a really great dinner, or $15 for a pair of first quality tailor made slacks for which Ralph Lauren would ask $100 (and have the gall to display his name on, to boot). And it has all the infrastructure you need to do anything you might want to do.
What do I do in Thailand? Well, pretty much the same things I do anywhere, but with some pleasant additions. I like to start the day with an hour of Tai Chi, take a couple Muay Thai lessons for aerobic exercise during the week, and get in a Mandarin tutor just to insure the brain stays flexible as well. An absolute favorite, at every opportunity, is an hour of foot reflexology, at a cost of $3.
Most tourists go to the beach resorts in the south â Phuket, Krabi, Koh samui; they're excellent. My preferred area is in the low mountains of the north, the Golden Triangle, centering on Chiang Mai, an extremely livable city of about a million. The thought of buying a house just outside of town, if only as an investment, is tempting. A new place with top construction and fittings, perhaps 6,000 sq. ft. on a half acre, would run about 8 million baht, or about U.S. $180,000. But that's living large by almost anybody's standards. $50,000 will get you an excellent house.
I see significant upside in Thai property for a number of reasons.
First is the country's low Purchasing Power Parity. Everything being equal, you always want to be in places where your dollar goes farther. Low costs always draw in more investment and visitors â high costs have the opposite effect, everything else being equal. It's one reason most Caribbean islands, for instance, are poor choices (although there are plenty of others).
Second is its friendliness. Thailand is one of the few Third World countries, anywhere, which was never colonized. That gives the Thais a nearly unique lack of resentment toward foreigners. It's also one reason why buying anything in Africa is inherently risky.
Third is its stability. There are political problems, but I consider them trivial â the average Thai is both quite conservative and incredibly loyal to the king. Lack of stability is one of the problems with Burma.
Fourth is its free-market orientation. You can do business, come and go, say and do at least to the degree you can in the U.S.
Fifth is its pleasant climate and scenery. I've long been of the opinion that, as the world gets richer, those who can will choose to live in physically attractive locations. Few people live in northern Canada by choice.
Sixth is its safety. Every country and city in the world has areas that, when you venture into them as an outsider, you're practically wearing a sign that says "I'm looking for trouble." In Thailand you have to go out of your way to find those venues.
Driven by these pluses, buying pressure on the Thai property market will build from two directions as time goes on. One is buying by foreigners, the other is an inevitably increasing standard of living within Thailand.
As a country for a second home, I'd say Thailand is one of the world's three or four most desirable countries. And I've been to almost all the candidates more than once. It will be a big beneficiary of buying from Americans, Europeans and (perhaps this will surprise many people) the Chinese. The whole world wants a cheap, friendly, stable, free, pleasant and safe place as a bolthole. Meanwhile, Thais are becoming wealthier, like the Orient at large. I'll wager that in a couple of generations, the main purpose Europe will serve will be to act as an open air museum, and a source of maids and houseboys for the Orientals.
One more thing about the Orient in general, and Thailand in particular. These folks are absolutely not going to serve as lapdogs for whatever fashions prevail in the U.S. Add that to the fact that foreigners living here â and this is equally true everywhere in the Orient â remain foreigners. That's a good thing, in that you're likely to stay completely off the radar screen of the government and other busybodies, a virtual non-element. Or, better, you're viewed as a rich outsider who must be actively cultivated lest he take flight. That offers a lot of freedom and privilege for foreigners living there, especially in the area of bank privacy.
As I go over the tips I've proffered here on real estate over the years, I find that I have, if I do say so myself, almost always been right, and almost always for the right reasons. Now would be an excellent time to take a serious look at Thailand.
Legendary speculator Doug Casey logs 150,000 miles a year, trekking through jungles, deserts and high mountain passes, while his readers sit home and collect returns of 400 percent, 4,170 percent, even 10,060 percent. He is the author of the best-selling "Crisis Investing" and "The International Man." He also edits the newsletter International Speculator.
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