Chiang Mai House

[Guest Asmerom]

Can any reader of this board living in the outer reaches of Thailand such as Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Udon Thani and elsewhere give their observations on renting a house in its own extensive grounds in a rural area. Not, that is, safely and securely tucked up in a tightly-knit gated village community. Is it just too vulnerable to contemplate for a single elderly farang? Has anyone done it?

 

More specifically, as I am about to rent a house of some sort in or around Chiang Mai, I would welcome suggestions as to which areas might be attractive. I motorbiked out to Mae Rim thinking it would be a quaint old village but found its just a ribbon development on a through road. Though turning off the main road does eventually get into attracive wooded countryside. But could I live there? I do like to be near mountains.

 

There are 5000 farangs living in Chiang Mai. Do they all live in town?

I saw some possible houses with lots of land on www.chiangmaihouse.com but maybe they lack cable or satellite TV, and internet access.

 

The rain here is most impressive. Maybe its the monsoon. It lasts for hours with the same solid intensity.Quite unike a Pattaya shower. No wonder waterfalls are a main attraction.

[Guest kjun12]

I have just done a search of the Chiang Mai area for a house to buy. There are many places both for sale and rent in areas surrounding CM. Some are in the country as you seem to desire. I would not be in the least bit intimidated by living in these areas. My advice would be to go toThaiVisa.com. They have many listings for all of thailand. I would suggest you look around Chiang Rai. I saw a couple of places there that should interest you.

 

 

 

[Guest luvthai]

I also would not hesitate to live in the countryside arond Chaing Mai. There are many fenced compounds about but one should always beaware what is around them. Being elderly and a farang would attract attention.

[Guest fountainhall]

I also would not hesitate to live in the countryside arond Chaing Mai

 

Although I live in Bangkok, I recently visited a farang friend who for 5 years has rented a large house with extensive grounds outside Chiang Mai. He lives alone in a tiny village of about 20 houses some 15 kms outside the city and 5 kms off the main road - i.e. about as isolated as you can be with open forest on 2 sides. He loves it and has never had any problem re safety/security.

[Guest Asmerom]

He lives alone in a tiny village of about 20 houses some 15 kms outside the city and 5 kms off the main road - i.e. about as isolated as you can be with open forest on 2 sides. He loves it and has never had any problem re safety/security.

 

Reading these replies leaves me feeling baffled - a familiar condition.

 

fountainhall :

 

You say your friend is about as isolated as one can be and yet you also say he lives in a village of 20 houses! That's positively claustrophbic ; not isolated. Do you mean the village is isolated? "Open forest on two sides". Is that the two sides of his house or of the village? When you say "village" I assume you are not meaning the sort of gated development as in Pattaya, or are you?

As I said, I don't want to ive in a village but rather open countryside.

 

luvthai :

 

"I wouldn't hesitate to live in the countryside near CM". Yet you go on to infer that it would be dangerous. Should I be emphasing the "I" in your first sentence, contrasting it with "me"? In other words, You, being young and sprightly would feel and be safe whereas I, being old and single (and possibly decrepit) would not.

 

kjun :

 

I will certainly look on thaivisa ,as you suggest. By "looking around CM" for a house, do you mean just wander aimlessly around looking for "FOR SALE " signs? Surely a tiresomely slow and arduous business.I wonder where those two houses are which you tantalisingly mention. Don't you use an agent?

 

I went to the offices of CHIANG MAI HOUSE this morning only to find it hidden away in a tiny backstreet located in someone's living room. It appears to be staffed by four or five persons of varying genders all trying to look busy but I guess, judging by the noisy shuffling of papers, they haven't seen a client in years.

 

The girl who dealt with me, spent most of the time trying to stimulate my fading interest in a dating website she brought up on screen.My dear, its a house I want, not a wife. They seem to run a dating agency as well. I think housing gets shoved to the sidelines. Nevertheless we're going out together tomorrow looking at houses(it seems all that shufflng produced results).

 

If my new friend has mixed motives we might both be in for a sad tomorrow.

 

 

 

[Guest fountainhall]

Do you mean the village is isolated? "Open forest on two sides". Is that the two sides of his house or of the village? When you say "village" I assume you are not meaning the sort of gated development as in Pattaya, or are you?

 

Yes, village is isolated. It's off the road that leads to the highway, but there are other small villages/communities in the area - none less than about 2 kms away. Open forest on two sides of the house. My friend is the only farang in the village. Absolutely not a Pattaya-like gated community.

[KhorTose]

Asmerom, all of the advice and replys sound very good to me. I agree with all written here, and I truly think you will like Chiang Mai and be safe here. May I suggest that the problem in not the advice, but Chiang Mai House. I too have had problems with this agency. Very flakey people who seem to have some agenda with real estate not high on thier list. I would like to suggest you contact Jasmine Homes, who has a professional staff and specializes in gated communities for Farangs. I hope this works and know you will enjoy Chiang Mai where you will find a large community of friendly gay and straight people.

 

http://www.jasminehomes.co.th/

Some other places you might look

http://www.chiangmai-property.thailand-real-estate.info/

http://www.chiangmairealty.com/

 

Good luck and, if successful, welcome

[Gaybutton]

I can't help you with your question, but I can make a suggestion. In Chiang Mai, before you sign on the dotted line, find out if the house you intend to rent has any flooding problems. There are areas that are quite prone to flooding. I have an acquaintance in Chiang Mai who is renting a beautiful home at a ridiculously low price. It turns out the reason for the low price is because several times a year his entire first floor floods. They have to get all the furniture moved upstairs before the water destroys it. They also need hip boots to wade from their house to the street. So, it's a good idea to check into that sort of thing.

[KhorTose]

find out if the house you intend to rent has any flooding problems.

 

Good point GB. Try to stay away from the area SE of Chiang Mai near the original city site. The reason the city is not now on that site now is because of constant flooding. Most of the rest of the areas are okay.

[dapitt]

KhorTose, is there another link for Jasmine Homes? This one seems to be 'redirected'. Thanks.

[Guest fountainhall]

There are areas that are quite prone to flooding.

 

Excellent point. In fact, all areas near the river are prone to flooding. Used to know someone who rented a lovely house in beautiful gardens about 10 kms north of the city and on the east bank. Although the house itself was not flooded when they were there, the gardens were - every year.

[KhorTose]

KhorTose, is there another link for Jasmine Homes? This one seems to be 'redirected'. Thanks.

 

No, that is the URL. It has been hijacked. Jasmine is a first class real estate business with a fantastic web site so I am sure they will have it back up soon.

[KhorTose]

whoops

[Gaybutton]

In fact, all areas near the river are prone to flooding.

 

Someone familiar with Chiang Mai will have to confirm whether this is correct, but I have heard there are actually domestic services in Chiang Mai that specialize in cleaning up flood damage once the waters recede.

[Guest gorcum]

I was wondering if you live in a village outside chiang mai, is transportation an issue, also if thier are houses for rent inside chinag Mai?

[Bob]

The worst flooding in Chiangmai that I've been aware of occurred 4-5 years ago and the Ping River came all the way up Taipei Road several hundred meters past the night market (Chang Klan, the night market street, had about 2 feet of water in the street - and you can imagine the destruction of the businesses that were downstairs there).

 

In the last year, the government did some dredging of the Ping and they assert that a repeat is unlikely. Don't believe it for a minute. Any place within half a mile of the Ping River is at risk.

 

Also, there has been some flooding on the west side of the city (water coming down Doi Suthep) although that's been somewhat rare. And, as somebody mentioned, anywhere near the southeast of the old city (where the original city was built and the temple area still known as Wiang Kum Kam) is prone to flooding. "Chiangmai" means "new city" and it consists of the what I call the old city (the part within the moat) that was built in 1296 by King Mengrai far enough away from the Ping to supposedly avoid the flooding problems annually encountered at Wiang Kum Kam.

 

P.S. For those interested in ruins, there are many ruins of the original city that have been excavated in the last 30 years and are very interesting to see (well, at least to me). I was out there photographing the sites two weeks ago during my recent visit to LOS.

[KhorTose]

I was wondering if you live in a village outside chiang mai, is transportation an issue, also if thier are houses for rent inside chinag Mai?

 

If you don't mind the Thai red buses it is easy to get to town. You can arrange for a regular driver to come when you call, but I would recommend a car or motor bike.

 

[Guest Asmerom]

I can't help you with your question, but I can make a suggestion. In Chiang Mai, before you sign on the dotted line, find out if the house you intend to rent has any flooding problems. There are areas that are quite prone to flooding.

 

Thanks Gaybutton for raising that question which seems to have released its own flood of interesting and informative replies.I can imagine it would be horrendous judging by the monsoon style torrents we get here. And thanks Khortose for the specific area to avoid being the SE and fountainhall for mentioning the River.I was quite unaware of this problem. Yesterday, on our way out of Chiang Mai, North towards the Superhighway, we spent about half an hour in the queue waiting to negotiate the floods on Chang Puak Road

 

The JASMINE HOMES link works fine for me.

 

After having viewed four possible houses yesterday I feel I should retract my rather arrogant remarks about CHIANG MAI HOMES made in my last post. Was I expecting a Western style Estate Agency with acres of window space displaying wonderful pictures of available properties? Yes. But these are the very people who have ridden on the back of the GREAT HOUSING BUBBLE which has contributed to the worst credit crisis in 100 years ,according to Alan Greenspan (who not only presided over it but encouraged it) and losing fortunes for many innocent investors, including me. Why should I wish to be reminded of that.

 

CHIANG MAI HOUSE is certainly located on the ground floor of a house in an entirely residential

backstreet. Yesterday fully redeemed themselves and belied my first impressions by showing me four possibilities mostly around Mae Rim. They didn't trust me with the girl so, Ton was my driver and as he couldn't tolerate a moment's silence he chattered away constantly in a mix of Thai and incomprehensible English (Tanglais).I'm sure he thought I understood him which I didn't. He was a hair-raising driver and giggled incessantly. I found him most endearing. I have his telephone number.

 

I haven't finished this post yet but I'm going to post this bit just in case it says I'm logged out and the whole post disappears, as its done already once this morning. So here goes!

 

 

 

[Gaybutton]

I've tried several times to post the second part of my message but fail every time.

 

I'm sorry you're having posting problems. If you wish, send your post to me in an Email ( gaybutton@gmail.com ). I'll be happy to post your message for you.

[Guest Asmerom]

I'm sorry you're having posting problems. If you wish, send your post to me in an Email ( gaybutton@gmail.com ). I'll be happy to post your message for you.

 

Thanks. I'll just try once more the usual way but first try sending this reply to see if it works.

[Guest Asmerom]

Thanks. I'll just try once more the usual way but first try sending this reply to see if it works.

 

Well, another wasted half hour. Because the above went through I thought my post would do too. It didn't. I spend half an hour writing it then it just disappears when I try to post. And refuses to recognise my User Name.

 

GB : Maybe I'll try your email when I've recovered in a day or two if the interest is still there.

Most annoying. I thought maybe I'd been barred for using semi colons.

[Gaybutton]

I spend half an hour writing it then it just disappears when I try to post.

 

I have no idea why that is happening, but I suggest writing your post on a word processor. That way you at least can save the post. Once you have done that, try to COPY the post from the word processor and then PASTE it into a post here on the board. Maybe that will work. If it doesn't, at least you won't have to re-write the whole thing.

[Gaybutton]

Asmerom has been having difficulty getting the second part of his message posted. At my suggestion he sent an Email with the second part of his post. Here it is:

_____

 

When we first got into the 100 year old BMW it predictably refused to start.We hauled open the bonnet and poured in bottles of good, healthy drinking water.It still wouldn't start.Ton, my driver of the day, thought it might be out of fuel.The girl came out and explained it ran on either oil or gas and impatiently pointed out the hidden switch.I'm slightly hazy about this bit.We then joined forces to beat the rusty old bonnet into a state of relative submission and got it to an almost closed position.Ton got in and the old banger coughed and spluttered reluctantly to life.We backed out into the road. The horrific clanking noises emitted from the gearbox area convinced me there was no way this old wreck would travel 100 yards up the road.

 

I was wrong again about Chiang Mai House. Once we had queued up to get through the floods on Chang Puak and onto the open road this 100 year old vintage BMW revealed it's true lineage and sped off North like a dream. Apart from the disturbing gearbox noises as we drew away from the lights we had no problems.We had no accidents and in spite of Ton's insistence on driving mere hair raising centimetres away from the car in front, we didn't hit anyone or anything.We viewed four houses in four hours and next week I'm going back for more.

 

CHIANG MAI HOUSE may appear "flakey" and first impressions are certainly not encouraging to westerners but some of my best friends are flakey and once they got their act together and sorted out their divided loyalties (with their dating agency) they fully redeemed themselves and performed well on the day.Not forgetting their excellent website with mouthwatering properties at reasonable rents which is what attracted me in the first place.

 

Its the THAI WAY and I like it. It was I who fell short by jumping too easily to facile judgments and harbouring totally irrelevant western expectations. Three cheers for CHIANG MAI HOUSE. Long may they prosper.

I even saw two other customers there.

 

I will of course also be visiting the highly recommended JASMINE HOMES as soon as I can.