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Tuesday 6 December 2011

Ko Samui Properties November 2011 Blog

Well the rainy season has started and all the usual places flooded very quickly – Beach Road south of Samui International Hospital and Dow Market as I write this. Some debate as to whether this is the NE Monsoon setting in or just heavy tropical storms. Well the weather charts indicate the wind is from the east so it is certainly moving in the right direction. What is more interesting is if the new drainage that has been installed will cope with the floods or not. The are just in the process of completing the new drainage outside our office and they have used large pre-cast concrete sections buried underground with large drain covers which we hope will be big enough to cope. Certainly better than the weed filled ditch we had before. The other advantage for us is that the rather insubstantial bridge across the ditch to our office has now gone and been replaced with a concrete driveway.

The Local Authority has over recent weeks been promoting their "Disaster Planning" following the severe damage suffered by the island over the last twelve months. This extends from dealing with floods, to landslides, long power failures and even a tsunami. Additional emergency vehicles were seen arriving on the island including fire engines and ambulances together with large pumps. We have seen an improvement over recent years as new drainage has been installed in that the floods have dispersed rapidly once the rain has stopped. I doubt we will ever see the large monsoon drains that you can see in Singapore or even Los Angeles, but work has been done to clear the Chaweng Klong. Obviously Samui has not suffered in the same way as the north of Thailand and Bangkok.

If you are considering opening a Personal Savings Account, have the following in mind. If you open joint account, you will probably not get internet banking – this has been the experience of two of our clients recently with Bangkok Bank (who actually have a very good internet banking system) and Siam Commercial Bank (who do not). If you want internet banking it seems it must be in a single name. Please do not ask me to explain the logic to this. If I have a joint account with my wife we can both have ATM cards and can take money from the bank but no internet banking. If I have a sole account she cannot access my internet account but I can give her the access details so she can use it.

The real estate market seems to be going through an inconsistent phase, although one could probably say that about much of the last couple of years, but enquiries seem to ebb and flow from many to none from week to week. What is consistent however is the number of properties being newly listed which is of course adding to the stock available. If you check our Newsletters for the past few months you will see we are adding properties all the time. I wish we were selling them at the same rate. All these properties are being offered by a number of agents on the island so they all have plenty of exposure to buyers. The consequence of course is that buyers have more and more choice and are very price conscious. Sales are happening, but your property has to be correctly priced or it will get passed over.

For a full copy of this Newsletter, email me at hbonning@kosamuiproperties.com