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Developing A Private Pool Villa in Thailand to Sell; A New Project

Every year I write out my plans and goals for the new year (you can see my 2025 plans here, where I mention a plan to buy some land in Thailand, and depressingly my 2024 plans here, where I ALSO MENTION A PLAN TO BUY LAND and clearly failed. Well, I finally did it. This week I bought some land, and began plans to build a private pool villa in Thailand, and then ultimately sell it. pool

Why build a private pool villa in Thailand to sell?

I recently had my first kid. And while blogging has been the best career move of my life to date, the impending onslaught of AI has me worried. I do believe blogging is here to stay (Chat GPT has to source it’s info from somewhere), but I can’t put all my eggs in that basket. Especially not with a family to support. What if it all ends. I have no corporate experience. I don’t think I’m built a for a ‘real job’. So I have to make some real money in another field. Ideally while my current income it still going strong.

But why a private pool villa development? I had 2 thoughts really. Shove it all in the American stock market (annualised returns of 7-10%, pretty good) or try my hand at property development. The markets are high right now, so that’s worrying. And also, I promised myself a couple of years ago that I’d do this. And I want to be a man of my word. So I’m taking the plunge.

My Property Background

I’m certainly not an engineer. Or an architect. And I’m not a designer either, as anyone who has seen my dress sense can testify. But I think I’m pretty good at spotting opportunities, and I have a strength in knowing my weaknesses. Those 2 things combined mean I think Chiang Mai, Thailand is at the beginning of a boom. And I will hire the right people to get the product I need.

Jaa and I also have 3 condos in Thailand, and I have personally overseen the building of my dream villa here in Thailand, and I then built a house for my mum nearby too. Am I an expert? No. Not at all. But I don’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch every other developer make a fortune while I sit home and think about it. So let’s give it a crack.

IDEA CONCEPTION

Making life-changing money is hard. If you read my blog, you know I grew up on welfare. And from there it’s even trickier. On top of that, social media makes it harder still. Convincing us that overnight successes are everywhere. I’ve done well through blogging, but it came with fighting for every penny. Saving, investing. Rarely being lavish. I have a yearly goal to save $100k each year, and it’s always a big struggle.

Then I built my dream pool villa in Thailand. I spent just shy of $700k, and instantly the place was valued at over $1m. $300K+ networth increase the day I got my keys. I’m onto something here, I thought! It took my 3 years to save $300k from my business, but property just gifted me it. I have to get into this game. That was the idea conception.

You can see my dream house here if you’re curious:

I’ve been held back a little by spending my time and money building my mum’s house. You can watch this video here if you want. And then I had the little matter of completing the Ultimate Explorer’s Grand Slam, which meant I had a $92k expedition to fund in Antarctica to run a marathon there, to climb the highest peak there and reach the South Pole. That wiped my funds entirely, and left me with a grand total of ZERO cash. I had to begin again. But at least now I knew what I wanted to do.

LOGISTICS

Thanks to my previous 2 builds I mentioned above, I have a couple of ‘mentors’. A lovely Danish guy Stig, in Chiang Mai, who I’ve been picking the brain of. And a Thai friend of mine, Sutast, who helped with my 2 previous builds and who I trust completely.

The logistics in terms of developing a private pool villa in Thailand are something like this;

1. Work out a budget in your mind. This is harder than you think, because there is effectively no financing available for foreigners in Thailand. So that means you, or you and your investors, have to stump up the cold, hard cash. This is why I have been so delayed.
2. Find the land. This is easy in the West. But in Thailand, the agents are atrocious. It’s a part time job. So you need to be proactive and go and find the land yourself normally. Literally driving around. I did this, and with the help of Sutast, I bought my piece this week. It took my 4 months to get this done I think.
3. Buy the land. As a foreigner you have a few options here. The most common is to register a company and buy in the companies name. My wife is Thai, we’ve been together more than 10 years, so thankfully I just bypassed this and whacked it in her name. Cheap and easy. It took 2 hours to purchase the land at the land office. We then have to prepare and raise the land. This can take a couple of weeks (currently ongoing, that was an extra $5k I didn’t budget for!).
4. Design the villa. This can take a while. I’ve literally just started. The style, aesthetic, the vibe, the concept. That all comes first. Then CGI drawings from the designer. Then architectural drawings. Then planning permission (this is easier than in the West, I think you can work out why).
5. CONSTRUCTION. Then the big bit spafes in the ground. Construction time for a private pool villa in Thailand is 9-15 months. My big house was 12 months, my mum’s was about 9 months.
6. Furnish. To sell a luxury private pool villa in Chiang Mai, it has to be fully furnished. This will take a while. Where as fro my mum’s house and my house, I didn’t care so much about the prices, this time around every extra 1 baht I spend is 1 baht less profit.
7. Sell. Then let’s see if I made a huge mistake and have lost all my money. Or if I make 10/20/30/40/50% profit. Time willl tell. Christmas 2026 I guess I’ll be trying to sell it.

Design & Build:

I went ultra modern for my dream home. Then I went Nordic/Muji minimalist for my mum’s. This time, I think to differentiate myself from the other luxury private pool villas in Chiang Mai I’m going to go for Modern-meets-Bali. Something a bit softer than the hardcore modern vibe of mine. Also, it’s a hedge against failing to sell it, as it’ll be easy to AirBnB with that design too. And with no financing on the house, the pressure is off in that respect.

Plans? Let’s see. But I’m thinking some ideas like this:

• 4 ensuite bedrooms.
• Master with walk-in wardrobe and luxury bathtub in master bathroom.
• Office/Gym
• Pool
• Maid’s room
• Luxury Kitchen
• Outdoor dining/drinking area
• Sunken sofa
• 350sqm/4000sqf

Timeframe

Let’s see. It took so many months to find the land. I’m waiting for them to prep it as I type. The design will for sure take at least 2 months. Maybe more. And then the build, I’d hope to be 11 or 12 months. Furnishing? Another month or so. That would mean the property would be finished, in a perfect world, before Christmas 2026. Maybe October/November. I’m terrified to write that because I can see myself spinning out in the future when I’m way beyond these dates!

Budget

Eurrrgh. First of all, all the horror stories of going over budget due to corruption in Thailand is over stated. It’s the same guys who get robbed that you see picking up hookers in Pattaya, 20 years younger. Successful people, it’s rare. And with my experience in Chiang Mai, especially. It’s been a dream. I trust my builder intensely. He’s a personal friend. And often I have to remind him that I owe him large sums!

That being said, my original budget for my house was 7mTHB ($200k ish), then 12m, then 15 and ending up with 22m ($700k!). That was due to me expanding my scope all the time. And of course, ending up with a huge 7000square feet, dream home. My mum’s place – we planned to spend $70k, and ended up spending about $150k. But this was again our choice, not about our designers or builders.

So here we go again. My original Private Pool Villa in Thailand budget was a total of 10mTHB ($300k). Why 10mTHB? I need to fund it myself and that already seems like a huge chunk to save. Over a 2 year period, maybe possible? Maybe not. Let’s see but I should probably be able to get close enough to get a loan to cover the rest. The 10m wasn’t some beautiful algorithm due to market trends. It’s simply the maximum money I can feasibly stump up!

I planned to break that down to:

• Land (3m/$90k)
• Build (6m/$180k)
• Furnish (1m/$30k)

I’m already $40k over budget on the land, because I went for a lovely, bigger piece. so I can see where this is going to end up! Currently I’ve extended my budget to around $350k. Let’s see where we end up! One thing I try to remind myself though is that the more I spend, the better the product, and hopefully the bigger the sale.

Want to get involved?

If you want to get involved at the ground level let me know. I’m open to investors to build a second pool villa in Thailand as I build this one. Doing 2 concurrently is much more economical too, so the returns should be even better. Let me know!

Our new land…

It’s 159.5square wah (a Thai measurement). Multiply by 4 for sqm. So about 640sqm, 7000sqf. It’s in the same gated community as my home, and my mum’s home.

Sales and Ownership

Sales then? Let’s see. The original plan was build for 10m ($300k), sell for 13-15m ($390-$450k). So I’d clear roughly $100k-$150k for the lot. But who knows? How long is a piece of string I guess.

There are normally 4 groups of buyers for the entry level to luxury private pool villas in Thailand

• Chinese. They want their money out of China, they pay cash. The dream.
• Wealthy Thais. Plenty of money in Thailand. So both wealthy Chiang Mai residents, and often super rich Bangkok Thais buying holiday homes for the cool winters.
• Married to Thai. Foreigners married to a Thai, where the purchase of $500k villa is still a lot of course, but not so crazy compared to London, New Work, Sydney, so they’re happy to live in luxury when they’re in Thailand.
• Wealthy foreigners. I’m like the poorest version of these people. Foreigners with online businesses, crypto, sold companies in the west. There are plenty of these people in Thailand. $500k is easywork for them.

They all have to work out the ownership model of course, but that’s always manageable. Especially at these price points.

Final thoughts on my pool villa development

I’m an open book. So, I’m 41 now, on top of what I have now, I figure I need to make another $1m-$2m to live my dream lifestyle for the rest of my life, and to provide for Aidan and Ja moving forward with good schools, healthcare, ability to travel, study etc.

If I build this pool villa, and sell for $450k. And save another $150k along the way during the building process. I can then build 2 as soon as this one is done and sold. Starting that second process early 2027. Sell both of those for a combined $1m’ish’ end of 2027. Then at that point, I’m getting close to my exit point already. Build another couple, or maybe 3, suddenly within a 5 year timeframe I’m up $1.5m. That would be the dream. Time will tell.

On the converse, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m already starting the process without enough funds to finish the project. I’m torn between being conservative and waiting, and trusting myself to make the money during the construction timeframe and therefore getting cracking asap. Whatever, let’s do it asap. Maybe I overspend, and can’t sell it. And I get stuck with 1 lovely villa and rent it out. Not the end of the world, but not quite the goal. Let’s see. Wish me luck!