The current political crisis has not impacted the public demand for owning homes, according to an industry executive. Bunyong Visatemongkolchai, president of Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Company, said the public’s purchasing power remains high although the political standoff continued unabated.

Incomes earned by many people are still sufficient to be set aside for a house purchase given the current low lending rates.

In addition, the government’s move to extend a measure to reduce ownership transfer and mortgaging fees may have increased potential purchasers’ decisions to buy homes.

Because of this, he predicted that home purchases will continue growing satisfactorily in the first half of this year.

via Purchasing power for homes remains high despite political turmoil.

Thai property developers, despite being some of the first local companies to get hit by the global financial crisis, have shown resilience and delivered strong results for investors. When the crisis ignited on Wall Street hit Thailand, our economic engine stalled early in 2009 and so did developers’ sales and revenues. Later, as investors tried to rebuild their diminished wealth, they turned to the very sector they had abandoned first, property development. With a one-year total shareholder return (TSR) of 132% last year, property development was the SET’s third best performing sector, in stark contrast to 2008’s lacklustre -43%. The sector comes under the Property & Construction industry, as defined by the SET, the exchange’s fifth largest sector with a market cap of 351.4 billion baht.