Thailand’s land prices skyrocket amid urban growth

Saenphin Sukhee, chief executive of residential developer Frasers Property Home (FPH), said land prices in Bangkok continued to grow despite the Covid-19 pandemic with an average increase of 70-75% during 2020-2022.

Saenphin said actual prices of land have risen beyond appraisal land prices. Financial institutions cannot catch up with the rise. As a result, FPH got project loans lower than they should.

The Real Estate Information Center (REIC) has recently reported the price index of vacant land in Greater Bangkok in the fourth quarter in 2022 at 381.4 points, an increase 12.5% compared to the same period in 2021 and rose 3.4% from the third quarter of 2022.

REIC acting director-general Vichai Viratkapan said rices of vacant land kept increasing but the rises remained lower than the five-year pre-pandemic average of 14.8% year-on-year and 4.1% quarter-on-quarter during 2015-2019.

He said the lower growth was derived from the global economic slowdown due to the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the normal collection of the land and building tax in 2021-2022.

Meanwhile, land in outer Bangkok locations saw a rising change in prices as land prices remained low, viable to develop low-rise houses at affordable prices for mass market demand.