Thailand Protests Won't Affect Property Markets as Badly as Thought

Today PropertyWire.com ran a story on how the political protests in Thailand will affect tourism, which will "filter down" to affect the property markets. I do not believe this to be true. Yes, the tourism industry will be badly affected, but the property markets not so much.

The property markets that are fuelled by tourism, i.e. the high end property sectors, have already been crippled by the disappearance of foreign buyers.

The smart property investment in Thailand, as in many of the world's emerging markets (especially Asia and Latin America) is in affordable (low-end) housing.

This is because there is incredible demand for affordable housing in Thailand, and this demand has been badly under-supplied in the past few years, because of developers concentrating on high end developments aimed at foreign buyers.

These developers, now faced with the exodus of foreign buyers are turning their attention to supplying the growing need for affordable housing in Thailand. The low-end sectors of Thailand's property market have already bottomed and begun recovery.

This is because Thailand continues to grow economically, and the Middle Class within the country continues to grow, along with it grows demand for affordable housing.

As the low-end sectors are fuelled primarily by Thailand residents, who will continue to buy their own homes irrespective of the political troubles, which have been a part of their lives for several years now, this emerging recovery will be unaffected by the political unrest.

And as the high-end sectors have already been crippled to such a great degree, it is unlikely that the political unrest will have a noticeable negative impact.