In Thailand some will buy a finished house, others will go through all the process of building their dream house.
You will often see in Thailand a price per sqm like 10,000 THB/sqm, even over 40,000 THB /sqm for luxury model, but honestly I never understood this as there are so many factors to take into account to build a house and not just one cost factor ( the area in sqm ).
Ok we can take it like an approximate "guide" because the builder have already build many of these models in different places ( architect plan is available in this case ) and price will be adjusted regarding quality of the finition and materials chosen ( some imported material will be expensive ), on the other end labour cost will be cheaper.
Quality of the house built will impact also in the final cost, I often heard that quality of houses in Thailand is bad, but we can not generalize.
There are also building permit to obtain, standards and regulations to respect to be fully compliant with local requirements which will impact in the final cost. These standards can be different than the ones you know in your home country.
If you have any tips to give to people planning to build their home in Thailand, be free to post your advices, what to do, what to avoid, how to choose a good contractor, builder, architect,... how you keep on track inside your initial budget,... etc
Also any advices regarding specific area more technical like solutions used for insulation to keep a house cool ( roof, wall, etc... )..
Thanks you for sharing your experience
Building cost in Thailand
Good topic.....will be interested to see what people with experience in this have to say.
Make sure any builder you choose does not need a large upfront deposit. Many stories of builders running with large up front deposit.
Our house construction went something like this on land the wife already owned.
We were living in the U.S. and I drew a floor plan with approximate dimensions.
Wife flew back to Thailand and took floor plan to land office to get building permit. Land office sent plan out to have complete set of construction plans drawn up.
She interviewed a number of builders and settled on one after viewing houses he built and talking to owners to see if they were satisfied.
The builder selected required no up front deposit and contract was signed detailing payment schedule. Its was a four payment plan with first payment due upon completion of foundation. Second payment due upon completion of shell and roof of house. Third payment due upon completion of all finish work (windows, doors, tile, painting, etc.). Fourth payment, 10% of total cost, held for ninety days to insure builder would correct anything that came up during that period.
Just for information.
There is a website of the government ( DPT : department of public works and town, and country planning ) who provide free architect plans of different models of houses and everything which go with ( materials list, price, etc... ), all can be downloaded but this website is in Thai : http://www.dpt.go.th/download/PW/house_ … ehome.html
A UK website did a more visual home page with all these house models : http://www.crossy.co.uk/Thai_House_Plans/ , however the download link is from the previous website
2 others points :
- Timing to build a house will depends on the model, but if everything is clear at beginning it should be between 3 to 6 months
- The warranty on building is often short like 1 or 2 years, I have never seen a 10 years warranty, but they will come to re-paint, fix the crack, even they change some tiles, ..etc..... before the warranty end ( but each case is specific and this must be written at the beginning )
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