Statistics don’t lie, agents do
OPINION
Anyone currently involved in the Thailand property market will be happy to note that Thailand’s global ranking for transparency within its real estate market (Jones Lang LaSalle, 2014) has improved from 39th in 2012 to 34th in 2019.
What does this actually mean for the majority of us? Unfortunately, the answer is very little indeed!
With almost no freely available, open market data within the Thailand property market, sellers and buyers are heavily reliant on real estate agents to provide honesty and guidance in assisting their real estate decisions.
Which prompts this question – do the readers believe that Thailand real estate agents are honest, patient, assertive, passionate, creative and tenacious?
I think belief outweighs truth and fantasy doesn’t equal reality.
We all know someone who has been burnt by bad property advice or been promised rental returns or capital growth that was never achieved. Do real estate agents use complex pricing models to value your property accurately and fairly, or do they take some pie in the sky figure dreamt up to buy your confidence.
Brennan Campbell, CEO of FazWaz, explains that market inefficacies have been more than amplified within the property sales business.
“Property owners, agents and prospective buyers alike are creating price evaluations based on subjective materials and not market facts. This leads to large discrepancies in pricing across different areas of the island, and even within the same development”.
What is really the most expensive area to buy? What premium do we have to pay for beach side properties? What is the average off plan to completion ratio for specific condominiums? What really is your property worth? Is it better to rent my property as a long term rental or as a vacation rental? What type of in demand units is the market lacking supply for vacation rentals?
There are thousands of questions that the market cannot easily answer at the moment, because the infrastructure, data and technology is not readily available.
Imagine if we could empower consumers in the Thailand property market with the resources they need to make better informed property decisions. Envisage helping consumers both search for their next property and research the market by utilising market data, local information and community tools.
Imagine providing buyers, sellers, developers and realtors alike the ability to back up wild claims with undisputed market statistics.
Will these developments be positive news for everyone?
I think the majority of people would agree that transparency is the only way to move this market forward and increase consumer wide confidence. I think the opposition would predominately come from property owners who will be surprised to find their true market value might be significantly less than they have been led to believe.
In layman’s terms, FazWaz uses loads of information from everywhere to give our customers an accurate market value. This is just a small part of analytics tool suite offering, and FazWaz has loads of great functionality that will be making available within this upcoming release.
By disrupting the Thailand property market through transparency and efficiency, we hope to set a new standard for transacting on property within Thailand. FazWaz hopes to bring this exciting functionality to the market by the 3rd quarter of 2019.
