The country's residential market still has room to grow in the second half this year despite the end of tax incentives, say property developers.
"Two months after the expiry of the tax incentives sales definitely froze, but I am confident the residential market will continue to grow in the second half, if only slowly," said Thanapol Sirithanachai, president of Golden Land.
"Sales at existing projects were sluggish after the incentives expired in April as future demand bought property in advance."
The incentives were meant to ease the glut in the property market, especially for the low- to middle-income segment.
Mr Thanapol admitted the market is in a trough, with only projects that are in "the right location and right target segment" able to make a profit.
Golden Land expects to record 5.5 billion baht in first-half presales, maintaining its full-year target of 14 billion, up from 12.8 billion last year.
Though the company is optimistic, it is concerned about banks' record high mortgage loan rejection levels of 25-30%.
Golden Land plans to launch 15 new projects worth a combined 16 billion baht in 2016. Three projects were launched in the first quarter.
In a related development, the company sold two office buildings worth 10 billion baht -- Sathorn Square and Park Ventures on Wireless Road -- to its real estate investment trust (REIT) fund earlier this year. It plans to sell the FYI Center on Rama IV Road to the REIT in 2018.
This year it budgeted 8.5 billion baht to develop a mixed-use project in San Yan owned by Chulalongkorn University where it won a leasehold contract. The project will comprise offices, condominiums, serviced apartments and retail.
Property Perfect (PF) plans to keep its presales target of 16 billion baht this year. Wongsakorn Prasitvipat, PF's chief business development officer, said it will maintain a plan to launch as many as 14 new projects worth over 20 billion baht in the second half this year, following only one launch so far this year with a total value of 1.4 billion baht.
In the first four months, it recorded 3.6 billion baht in presales and 4.36 billion in revenue, up from 2.5 billion a year earlier, which it attributed to the government's property tax incentives. PF has a sales backlog of 5.4 billion baht, comprising 900 million from single houses and townhouses and 4.5 billion from condos.