Bangkok Apartments | Bangkok Condos | Bangkok Serviced Apartments

Home

Hunt for condos to complete

Due to the economic downturn, Aquarius Estate Co Ltd will look to complete unfinished condominiums whose developers faced financial problems, with spending of 50-100 million baht for two to three projects, chief executive Yongyutt Chaipromprasith said yesterday.

''During the company's first year, most customers in our property development management business were large developers that had never entered the condominium market,'' he said. ''We gave them advice from the very start.''

Now the company will focus on projects where developers could not finish construction despite having presold 80-90% of the units. It will focus on the Sukhumvit area where the company has expertise.

''The developers are unable to finish project construction due to many problems such as poor cashflow management or estimates of finance, construction period or income,'' Mr Yongyutt said. ''Wrong estimates can lead to bankruptcy.''

He said the potential projects were new entrants with very little experience in property development. Each project had a sales value of between 500 million and 600 million baht.

When taking on a project, the company will analyse whether unit buyers were end-users or speculators, and whether the work could be finished within six months.

The company plans to manage sales of a project in Hua Hin worth 400 million baht to be launched in March. Another three projects worth a combined 1.5 billion baht are in the sales management pipeline.

The three-year-old developer also plans to launch a new condominium worth 800 million baht in the third quarter but did not disclose its location.

According to an Aquarius survey, about 50 condominiums in Bangkok will open sales this year in Bangkok with a total of about 20,000 units, down from 61 projects with 19,887 units last year. The average price per square metre would rise from 70,807 baht to about 80,000 baht.

The company also plans to open a brokerage business by mid-year with a focus on only condominiums in the Sukhumvit area. Currently, it had 30 resale condominium units on hands

By the end of the year, it targets total revenue of 235 million baht _ 100 million from property development, 100 million from services, 30 million from its hotel business with 32 rooms on Koh Samui, and five million from other sources.
Bangkok Post Feb 12, 2009