Case Study

Sale of Resort Villa in Sri Panwa, Phuket

Hotel

Project Details

Client Represented: A Thai Investor
Location: Phuket, Thailand
Topline: Acquisition of Luxury Seaview Villa in Phuket with a budget of THB 80 million.

Overview

CBRE Phuket’s Resort Property Sales team received a client referral from the CBRE Bangkok head office in acquiring a luxury seaview villa in Phuket that is within a 5-star resort development with a budget of THB 80 million.

Challenge

There is a limited choice of properties with freehold ownership, both villa and land, within the resort market in Thailand. We initially offered a 3-bedroom villa in Sri Panwa with a private swimming pool which was within the client’s budget. During that time, ownership structure of the villa was freehold in accordance with the client’s preference. However, it took approximately 1 month for the client’s appointed bank to appraise the property and while the process was ongoing, another buyer bought the property thus causing our client to miss his opportunity to buy the villa.

1 year later, as our client expressed interest in Sri Panwa, we offered a resale villa property for sale. This time it was a 5-bedroom villa also with a private swimming pool; however, it was over the client’s budget and ownership of the land was leasehold with an option to upgrade to freehold which can be quite complicated for some clients to understand. The client decided to inspect the property and after, agreed to the price but the challenging part was to then convert ownership from leasehold to freehold. The process is complex because there are many taxes involved, due diligence required, and seamless cooperation is needed with the seller or owner of the freehold villa who leases the land and the developer who owns the land with a lease registration under the seller’s name.

Strategy

CBRE Sales team comprehensively worked out the entire process with the seller, seller’s lawyer, and the developer to ensure our client’s requirements to own the villa property under a freehold title was met, thus allowing our client free ownership for perpetuity and use of the land for residential purposes in accordance with local regulation as well as the undertaking of both the sale and purchase agreement and ownership transfer.

To undertake a comprehensive process with all parties, CBRE carried out the following:

Maintain strong client relationship by maintaining constant communication and keeping our client updated about information on any interesting properties until the right one is found and the sale is complete;
Ensure negotiations of the price and expenses associated to ownership transfer with the seller work to our client’s advantage;
Coordinate with the buyer and seller’s lawyer to agree to all terms and conditions in the sale and purchase agreement;
Coordinate with the developer and seller’s lawyer regarding land ownership as well as taxes and fees involved to upgrade ownership of villa property from leasehold to freehold;
Thoroughly inspect the property to make sure the product is delivered to our client in good condition;
Coordinate with the developer to ensure the client’s requirements to use the villa property for residential purposes within the resort are met; and
Coordinate with all parties involved to complete ownership transfer process at the Land Office.

Results

Since our client missed the opportunity to buy the first-offered property in Sri Panwa, CBRE maintained strong client relationship, and waited until a good property came into the market. As soon as a property which met most of our client’s requirements came up, we immediately updated our client accordingly. Unfortunately, the price of the second property was over the client’s budget but we convinced our client to consider the differences of this property as compared to the first. As the second villa was bigger as well as in a better condition and location, we successfully convinced our client that it was worth increasing his budget to buy the property.