Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

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Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Leave Thailand completely
10
53%
Leave Hua Hin for another location within Thailand
9
47%
 
Total votes: 19

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PeteC
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Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by PeteC »

Seeing so many items for sale, sometimes entire households, in our classifieds section I can't help but think some have decided to pack it in. This may mean Thailand completely, or a decision to move somewhere besides Hua Hin.

This thread is generally for expressing that decision, and to give others who haven't yet moved to Thailand a place to mull over the reasons why some folks decide to leave completely or relocate.

We've probably done this before but no harm in an update every year or so to see if trends have changed.

Hopefully we'll get some honest and frank replies. Pete :cheers:
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by brianks »

We left Hua Hin for a much more rural lifestyle in the south. A few run in's with the infamous builder (known on the forum for his very public and ultimately deadly rant) was a factor. Big also was the massive development now in Hua Hin which is making it much more crowded. Never wanted to go down town on weekends and never at night. Just too congested on main road.

I now travel the rural roads of Khanom and seldom see any cars and few motorbikes on any of my travels here. Lots of uninhabited beaches too. No dry season here either. Very lush green mountains and surroundings.
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by hhfarang »

Trying to leave Thailand buy may be trapped.

My situation only applies to retirement as if you are young and can figure out a way to work or earn income here the situation may be different plus you potentially still have earning power in your home country or elsewhere should you decide you're not happy here.

Both my Thai wife and myself feel it was a mistake to retire early and move here in the first place as we were both enjoying life much more before the move. That retiring early may have trapped us here though as we sunk the majority of our savings into building a house that went about 50% over budget due to a crooked cowboy builder. It finally sold recently, but took years and we had to lower the price several times by millions of baht. I am doing a lot of research now to try to calculate if we can go back to my home country but a couple of factors may make it impossible (mainly health care and taxes).

If I had worked five more years as was my lifelong plan instead of retiring early and coming here and investing way more than my budget in an unmarketable property we would be much better off with a lot more in savings, I would have a much larger monthly pension income and we would have more choices of places to live in retirement. I know several others who have fallen into the same trap, coming here and then becoming financially trapped into staying.

Just for those who are thinking about it, I wouldn't come here again without 1 million USD (or equivalent) in savings plus a monthly income from pensions or whatever of a minimum of 150k baht per month. Sure, that may sound like a lot, but if you want to enjoy international travel, play golf, hedge against inflation, survive disastrous exchange rate changes, and enjoy your golden years or have options in the future should you tire of Thailand you will need this amount or close to it to insure that you can repatriate/escape.

Another piece of advice is buy the smallest, cheapest property you can live with if you decide you must own. Cheaper ones sell faster and cost much less to maintain, cool, and care for and protect when/if you travel. We are currently renting a property that is about one fourth of the size of the one we sold and are perfectly happy with the size of the home and garden and feel much less stressed with an electric bill that is one forth of the previous average, a water bill that is one sixth of the previous, and no maintenance costs (which were at least 8k per month before in average scheduled maintenance and a minimum of 5k per month in unscheduled maintenance) at all due to renting instead of owning. Don't be trapped into the "building your dream house" scenario. I know another family who built a 30m baht home in an executive area of Hua Hin and then decided they didn't like it here. The guy wasn't willing to wait 6 to 7 years to get out as I have done so he sold that home for 15 million baht, losing half of his investment about a year after completing construction.

I had been coming to Thailand nearly yearly for about 20 years before retiring and loved it, but trust me, a two week to one month holiday, or living part time seasonally here is very different from living here full time and even my (Thai) wife who had had an eight year taste of living in a western country was tired of it after three or four years, yet here we sit, trapped after nearly ten years, trying our best to figure a way out. Be careful what you wish for; the retirement I dreamed of all my working life was ruined by the decision to commit to Thailand, and I can't get those last ten years of my life back. :|
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STEVE G
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by STEVE G »

If I had worked five more years as was my lifelong plan instead of retiring early....
I won't be making that mistake HH, apparently my generation has to work until we're about 70!
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by Ratsima »

Perhaps the poll needs a "no" option in response to the yes-or-no question.

I retired eight years ago at age 55 (lucky me) and have lived in Thailand since then. I've been a frequent visitor to Hua Hin since the early 90s.

I've no intention of leaving Thailand. I have a good life here and am enjoying myself immensely. I can't think of a place I'd rather be. I lived abroad (away from the US) almost all of my adult life, so perhaps that made it easier to retire here. Not such a big change from what I was used to.

We've just purchased a condo near Cha Am so that we can spend more time in that area in a place that we can call our own.
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by buksida »

Left Hua Hin 4 years ago for another location in Thailand, primary reasons as follows:

Expenses - Got fed up with the 'Hua Hin premium' being added to everything. Getting out of the tourist trap gets you the real prices for things.
Crime - At the time there was a spate of burglaries, gun toting farang building mafia, attacks after dark etc etc. (Seems better now though).
Traffic - This has gotten worse by the week and continues to due so.
Corruption - Dealing with police, immigration, land offices, and any govt department in Hua Hin became an expensive hassle laden headache. Not the case elsewhere.
Environment - Hua Hin is a massive construction site, I like a few trees and a bit of nature!

On the flip side I still return to HH frequently and enjoy my visits much more so that I don't have to live there.
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STEVE G
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by STEVE G »

On the flip side I still return to HH frequently and enjoy my visits much more so that I don't have to live there.
Yes, as a frequent visitor I'm in the same boat, many of the things that you listed as problems are largely avoidable if you don't actually have a schedule to keep in Hua Hin. I live out to the west where it isn't built up yet, I've never had a problem with crime and I don't go into town when I know it's going to be congested with traffic.
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by PeteC »

Ratsima wrote:Perhaps the poll needs a "no" option in response to the yes-or-no question......
I purposely avoided that. We have had many threads about what people like about Thailand and Hua Hin, and why they want to be here. I wanted to keep this one less cluttered and specific concerning those who want to leave or relocate, and their reasoning. Pete :cheers:
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by Ratsima »

Perhaps:

For those who have decided to leave Thailand or to leave Hua Hin:

o I have decided to leave Thailand and reside in a different country
o I have decided to leave Hua Hin and reside elsewhere in Thailand
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by Takiap »

I can't really say I have anything to complain about, although I would probably move further south if I could since I also prefer to be a bit in the country. However, we have our kids to think about, and while Hua-Hin might not have the best schools, it does have more to offer than many other parts of Thailand.


Will I ever leave Thailand? Probably not, unless I found some place even more crazy. :thumb:


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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by alleykat »

building a house that went about 50% over budget due to a crooked cowboy builder
Curious to know this cowboys name? Are you allowed to say his nickname on this forum?

We recently had a small amount of work done by a contractor and his workers and sub-contractors. It was nearly two weeks of hell (only meant to be one week), luckily we weren't staying in the house. Some of the workmanship was shocking and had to be done again. The workers were lazy and the main boss guy who I was paying for all of the jobs only made fleeting appearances every other day, I had to be on the phone to him two or three times a day to sort out problems. Also I had to be there all day everyday watching them. Some days they didn't turn up at all, other days were late, and one guy was drunk on the job then went home at noon.

This guy's main business is contracting for farangs so if anyone wants to know his name PM me.
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Lev
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by Lev »

Please stick to PMs if naming names - property developers have made threats to sue the forum in the past for just that.

:offtopic:
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by nanyang »

We're leaving for Europe in the next three months.

I've just visited Ireland and am currently in the U.K. doing my 'homework'.

We have two daughters aged 9 and 6 respectively.

Their level of English is unacceptable and the only way to attain a level of acceptability is immersion.

We managed to sell our main home last month and my wife and daughters will return to Thailand from time

to time.

I have no intention of returning to Thailand, as I find the travelling to be an absolute chore.

I agree with a lot of what HH Farang has posted, particularly the point about being 'trapped'.
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by wpcoe »

My condo in Jomtien which I had "sold" on a rent-to-buy contract, came back to me. (The renter/buyer defaulted on the agreement.) I had to weigh the pros/cons of trying to sell it again (not easy to sell: too many new buildings, and not in a prime location) or moving back in to it. I'm not interested in being a landlord and renting it out.
  • Hua Hin
    Pros:
  • Convenient location (Soi 80)
  • Nicer beaches
  • tolerable Songkran celebration
  • Cons:
  • Noise: Thais like their noise, and it's impossible for me to get away from it here. Kids play -- screaming -- in front of my place, even though none of them live on my block. Dogs barking and fighting at all hours of the day. Increasingly, cats are becoming a problem, as well. Bar noise from the adjacent soi increasing -- more live performances which, of course, must be >100db.
  • Unreliable clean water supply
  • Frequent blackouts and power "snaps"
  • Crime -- lots of break-in burglaries in my block
  • Snakes -- only half serious, but I did have a half-dozen or so snakes in my kitchen
  • Immigrations requires three-month seasoning of funds when using income+savings for retirement extension
  • Jomtien
    Pros
  • Peace and quiet
  • Reliable water and electricity supplies
  • Haven't had a single snake in my condo
  • More, and better, shopping choices
  • Immigrations complies with national police order and does not require three-month seasoning for a retirement extension as mentioned above
  • closer to Bangkok for visits (I go there about every other month)
  • cheaper transportation (and more options) to BKK airport
  • Cons
  • location not as convenient
  • beaches not as nice
  • horrendous week-long Songkran celebrations
Some of those items reflect my personal quirks. e.g. Many people are happy to live in the outlying areas, but I do not want a car or moto-sai. Living on Soi 80 in Hua Hin is ideal as I can walk to 75% of the places I want to go. In Jomtien, I need to use a moto-sai taxi and a baht bus to get anyplace.

I've decided to move back to Jomtien. I will list my condo for sale again and if I sell it, I will need to re-evaluate the Hua Hin vs Jomtien situation again.
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Re: Have you decided to leave Thailand and/or Hua Hin?

Post by TakeitToTheMax »

I must say that I most likely fall into the first category. It was not intentional but I went to visit a friend overseas and surprisingly liked it so much I have stayed on.
During my time away from Hua Hin I have contemplated much and I only express my opinion. Thailand has many many things going for it but also so many things against it.

1. I hate the corruption, getting stopped by traffic police and having to hand over money.
2. When purchased my home we had to bung the person in the land office money just to get the land papers
3. Hate the double pricing regime which even my own lady condoned as farangs have more money.
4. Things are not really so cheap, cars are damned expensive and houses are overpriced for what one gets, especially with the quality one gets.
5. Life seems to revolve far to much around bars and bar girls
6. hate the infidelity which seems to be accepted as normal by just about everyone in Thailand
7. hate that one cannot have an open discussion about the monarchy for fear of going to jail. My friend was jailed for this and just because a Thai woman he was seeing got angry with him and told the police he offended the king, he insists he didn't he is still in jail at 67.
8. Hate the fact I cannot sell my property as the market is flooded with new development.
9. hate that farangs cannot get finance for property or for business
10 hate that we are called farangs.

Ah well many more things but it really doesn't concern me to much now, I will still visit now and then but never live in HH or Thailand again.

Where am I know, the home of chewing gum, Belize Central America such a wonderful place.
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