Russian “long-term” tourists for the first time began to buy apartments en masse in one of the unexpected, albeit popular tourist destinations, and it is not Turkey or the UAE at all. This country turned out to be Thailand. The reasons are generally clear: Europe for Russian tourists, including real estate owners, is closed and threatened with sanctions; in popular Turkey, there is excitement — and sanctions have their problems. Against this background, Thailand looks like a haven.
According to Kommersant, even though Thailand does not grant investment citizenship to anyone, the purchase of real estate in this country attracts Russian tourists, a four-fold increase in demand has been recorded, and Russian citizens buy approximately half of the properties in the country for their residence.
In 2020, for the first time, Thailand was in the top 10 most popular countries for the purchase of real estate among Russians, the growth in demand for real estate in the country for the year was 50-60%. As a result, Thailand, along with Turkey and the UAE, became one of the three countries where the interest of Russians in purchasing real estate began to grow rapidly this year. And as a result, according to Intermark Real Estate, Russians, which in turn refers to the statistics of the real estate information center of the State Bank of Thailand (REIC), are in second place in terms of the number of flats and apartments bought by foreigners in the kingdom. In the first quarter of this year, they accounted for 6.4% of all transactions. The first place is occupied by the citizens of China (45%). The USA, Great Britain, and Thailand are “lagging” the Russians in this sense.
We will remind you that in Turkey, the purchase of real estate by Russians in January-April also showed a 65% increase, and ours also came in second place. For January-April 2022, the first place in terms of transactions was taken by Iran: tourists bought 3,161 residential premises. The second place is in Russia (2687), and the third is in Iraq (2601).
However, the growth of demand for Turkish real estate is hindered by two circumstances. First, prices have skyrocketed. Secondly, the security of owning property in Turkey turned out to be somewhat questionable. At least in August, the Turkish newspaper Yeni Şafak published a scandalous article in which they assured that representatives of the US CIA began to show interest in real estate that Russians are actively buying in Turkey, and threatened local business circles of developers with negative consequences of cooperation with Russia. In particular, as part of the “monitoring of sanctions”, the employees of the US agency also interviewed local businessmen by phone about “how many houses they sold to the Russians” and “in what currency and through which bank.”
One way or another, “neutral” Thailand, which has so far kept relatively moderate real estate prices, turned out to be attractive to the Russians. The trend started already in the summer. As experts note, the country is officially recognized as politically neutral, while real estate prices in Thailand remain relatively affordable. According to Intermark Real Estate, the cost of a furnished studio with an area of 30-35 square meters. m in the popular tourist area of Phuket starts from $110,000. Private villas with two bedrooms cost $200,000. However, Thailand does not grant investment citizenship for the purchase of the real estate.
According to Thai media, the number of Russians arriving in their country is likely to increase due to the partial mobilization announced by Putin.
We will remind you that on September 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization in Russia.
According to official statements, as part of this wave of mobilization, the Kremlin is going to call on 300,000 Russians to participate in the war in Ukraine. However, the mass media claim that the classified clause of Putin’s decree refers to the recruitment of a million people.
Already within an hour after the announcement of the mobilization, the Russians bought up all the tickets for flights on September 21 to Istanbul, Yerevan, and Tbilisi. Meanwhile, huge traffic jams formed on Russia’s land borders with neighboring countries – Russians began to leave the country en masse.