We got very discourage about building a house and decided to buy a condo. The condo had never been lived in but is 10 years old. It is in very good shape structually. Some of it was a bit dated in appearance and did not provide the power points/outlets or the quality of lighting we wanted.
It also had wallpaper on all the walls and the tile was a bit dated. The floor was teak but had gotten wet from windows being left open so it needed some help also.
It is a very nice size condo, 4 BR & 4BA 255m2 right on the beach with really outstanding views of the beach to the north and south and views of the mountains and the lights of Cha Am at night. It has 4 balconies and is on the 14th floor.
We had 3 bids on doing the job. One of the bidders was a farang and the others were Thai. One of the Thais (from BKK) bid was over twice as much as the other and was not doing as much, also after looking at one of their jobs we decided it was not to our liking.
The Thai builder showed us a couple of condos he was in the process of remodeling and we were quite impressed with them. Talked to the owner and he said he was very happy with the work but said it went a bit slow.
We had a bit of a communications problem with the Thai as his english is a bit limited and my Thai is non-existant. So we solved this problem by hiring a thai friend who is very fluent in english and Thai to supervise the work for us. This ended up working out very well for everyone. She gets along very well with the builder and the workers and is very fussy about the quality of the work. A little bonus was she has very good taste and good ideas.
The builder is a real jewel, if you don't like the way something is going or need to make changes he never argued and always did things the way we wanted them done. I might add even with the changes he never added anything to the cost unless it additional material. The quality of the work is really very good, his woodworkers are exceptional and take pride in what they are doing. I could go on but I think you get the idea, we liked him and the work that was done.
I might add that I was not really to excited about the idea of living in a condo. But I find I really love it here, it is quiet (most of the time) the beach is brillant to walk (at low tide) and the facilities are very nice, a large pool, a billard room, fitness room, sauna, and handball court. Plus 24 hour security and a good manager that is easy to deal with.
So with a bit of luck and a lot of research you can have a good building experience. The job was pretty low stress for us although the builder is not fast he does a very good quality job but a bit slow.
The builders name is Nueng sorry don't have a phone number as never had occasion to call him, it was handled by our Thai supervisor. If anyone would like it PM me and I will get it for you. I would like to stress that a big part of the success of this job was due to our Thai friends supervision of it.
Sorry for the length of this post did not intend to write a book.
