Follow your heart when buying your home

Follow your heart when buying your home

Owning a home is everyone’s dream, but finding a home that satisfies all your requirements is not easy. For one thing, you often face a dilemma when choosing between a home that you like and a home that would make a good investment. It would be great if you could get a property that satisfied both criteria.

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Generally speaking, of course, most people do not want to change their residence without a reason. Apart from the hassles of moving, they are attached to the familiar: their neighbourhood and surrounding community. Apart from financial reasons, there are very few motivations for people to sell their home. And thus, even though buying a home and making an investment are almost always separate issues, most people mix them up when making their decision.

One can also be prevented from finding the perfect home because of the undue influence of the opinions of others. For example, I have a client who wanted to buy a super-expensive apartment in London. He fell in love with the place from the first visit. But baulking at the extraordinary price, he wanted more information.

Everybody he consulted — including banks, property agents and friends — told him not to buy because the asking price was much higher than the norm. It was then that he came to see me and asked for my opinion.

I asked him three questions. First, do you really like the property? Second, do you feel this property is special and satisfies your every requirement when compared to other properties? He said that of all the places he had inspected, this was the one that best served all his requirements including location, view, design, quality, decoration, function and property management.

The last question I asked is whether he could afford to buy it without any short-term or long-term financial risk; if yes, then he should go ahead and buy it. He is now extremely happy with his purchase. The property has increased further in value but that is almost meaningless when compared to his contentment with living in this apartment.

Another example is the story of a client who told me about missing his opportunity to buy the land next door to build a family compound. Ten years ago, the lady next door offered to sell her land to him at 45,000 baht per square wah and he turned it down because he did not think that he would ever need larger site.

Then, three years ago, his son got married and he wanted to buy more land to construct a house for his son but the lady next door now wanted 120,000 baht per square wah. He turned her down as he considered the price higher than the market. Recently, he decided to buy that piece of land to expand his property into a family compound and was prepared to pay market price, which has increased to almost 180,000 baht per square wah. But when he contacted his neighbour, he found that the land had already been sold to another buyer.

As you can see, buying for investment is also cause for dilemma because many people allow their emotional impulses to confuse their investment decisions. Generally, when most people consider buying a property for investment, they also would like it to double as a property they like because they are tempted to think that they might use the property in the future.

Actually, when buying for investment, the decision should be based on yield, ease of letting potential competitors and potential for capital appreciation.

This means selling at the right time when the market is going up or buying the best-selling product despite your personal opinion of it. However, in many cases, investors feel attached to the property and do not sell when they should.

In Thailand, where property management standards are still far from perfect, it is likely that older buildings can become run down and appreciate less in value. Unless the property is in a very prime location, in all probability, selling at the right time and reinvesting could be a better decision to maximise returns than retaining an ageing property.

Likewise, some buy-to-let investors spend a fortune decorating their units according to their taste and end up finding it difficult to rent out or getting poor returns due to overspending on unnecessary items.

When buying a home for yourself, you should follow your heart rather than worry too much about its investment value.

The decision to buy your home is sometimes solely subjective and not always logical. But it also depends on different personality types and whether the individual is a risk-taker or risk-averse.

If making a profit is your number one criterion, then watching your wealth increase might outweigh the value of your personal lifestyle. Choose wisely.


Aliwassa Pathnadabutr is managing director of CBRE Thailand. She can be reached at

bangkok@cbre.co.th; Twitter: @CBREThailand; Facebook: www.facebook.com/CBRE.Thailand; Website: www.cbre.co.th.

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