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ServicesAs a real estate agency, our service is FREE to people looking for a property to rent or buy. (It is traditional in Bangkok real estate for the agency to get all of our commission from the owners, for helping them get their property rented more quickly for more income, marketing, filtering visitors, and handling things like English, lease, utilities, and other support for both the renter and the landlord.) It is normal for us to spend several days with you, taking you around to show properties. However, first we must understand your needs and preferences. We are matchmakers, for helping you find the best home, based on our years of familiarity in this immense city and its diverse options. We also offer additional services and support as follows:
In addition to this website, for information about moving to Thailand, owning or leasing land, international schools, and so on, while you can find some of that information on this website, you can find a whole lot more on our other website, www.ThailandGuru.com , a guide to living and working in Thailand which was established in the year 2000 and has been growing ever since. However, it can save you a lot of time if you just ask us questions instead of digging around on the internet for everything. We strive to be a "one stop shop" solution provider. Advice & Guidance for PlannersThere are some additional services which we may offer separate from a standard real estate agent service. Many people come to Bangkok to explore the possibility of living or working here, or investing, but are not ready to make a commitment in the near future, or else are not really sure whether or not they can make a commitment. Nevertheless, the visitor is new to Bangkok and wishes to use their time efficiently, whereby they need an orientation to the Bangkok metropolitan region, as well as answers to many questions and some guidance. For this service, it would not be appropriate to engage the usual services of a real estate agent, as real estate agents in Bangkok normally show customers around for "free" for the customer because it is traditional in Bangkok for the agent to get their support commission from the landlord or seller, so if there is no intention by the customer to rent or buy during these showings then there would be no possible commission, yet the agent must spend considerable money and time both showing and preparing. For this, we offer a personalized "guide" service, whereby we can drive you around in our SUV to show you the market in properties, the leading suburban neighborhoods, international schools, modern conveniences, and anywhere you want, answering your questions along the way and offering guidance, at a daily or hourly rate in cases where you definitely will not be closing on any properties. If you later come back and rent or buy something from us, then we refund this to you. Please understand that real estate agents not only spend money and time showing you around, but also have a lot of overhead in surveying for properties, operating an office with support staff, and preparing your itinerary a day before. Please be honorable and tell us the truth about your situation so that we can best serve you as well as be sustainable for our own families who are dependent upon our productivity. Stated more concisely: Agencies have many experiences with abusive people using dishonest stories, freeloading attitudes and rationalizations just to take advantage of others at agents' expense. We are happy to give some free advice over email, the phone, or in the office. For longterm planners, we prefer to make a telephone appointment in advance after you give us your true story in email. We fully understand these kinds of needs for families and individuals. Many of us have relocated likewise so that we understand the relocation experience. We happily provide good expert guidance and analysis over the phone by appointment, for free. However, driving people around for field showings of sample properties and regions may be at an hourly or daily rate if you do not intend to take anything from any agent but just want to get an orientation of Bangkok and see what's available at what prices. Again, we refund these field showing expenses to you later if you eventually rent or buy a property from us. It is understandable for people truly moving in the nearterm to try different agencies in their search for suitable properties. There are no hard feelings as long as the customer finds and takes something from some agent or agency, in a fair way. The agents and agencies get upset mainly when the customer doesn't take anything from anybody (including competitors) as if the pretending customer were never serious and apparently just wanted to trick the agents into a free tour, whereby no agent ever really had a chance. This section covered only people planning to move in the longterm, not people coming to book a property in the near term. Changed PlansSimilar to the above customers who contact us for longterm advice and guidance without any intention of renting or buying a property from us, there are some people who request for an agency to show them around with the expressed intention of taking a property, but who later inform the agency that their plans changed, e.g., their company did not hire them in Bangkok after all, or that they decided not to come to Bangkok, or for some other reason decide not to take any property from any agency in Bangkok, contrary to expressed intentions and specifications which turned out to be misleading for a "free" service. In these cases, the customer should make some compensation to the agency for expenses showing them around, if the customer consumed a lot of the agency's resources based on a false premise. Common AdviceIf you have children going to an international school, then you may want to locate your home very near the international school in order to maximize the social life of your children, which is an important part of child development. For young children, a parent should take them to/from school, so it is even more important to be located near the school than the workplace. Many international schools run school buses to far away neighborhoods, and promote this, but it's still far from the school and many other classmates. There may be tradeoffs to analyze. Stated commute times are often promotional and not accurate (often longer), and traffic can vary significantly from day to day. If accuracy of commute time is important, then it should be researched properly and clarified, possibly including trying it out some morning and evening yourself by taxi at the time of interest, since traffic can get very bad at rush hour. Noise can be an issue at night, potentially disturbing your sleep and thereafter your energy, productivity, and state of mind the next day, especially if you are a light sleeper. When you visit places, be careful to analyze potential nighttime noise from the surrounding environment, especially roads, most notably from motorcycles with bad mufflers and tuk-tuks. Also, check air conditioners for their noise level, especially if you are sensitive to noise at night. Construction or potential construction would mean daytime noise. It may be worthwhile to check out local conveniences such as grocery stores, restaurants, shopping malls and plazas, and standalone local shops, in addition to common facilities such as clubhouse, swimming pool, and fitness center. Again, sellers may promote their property by saying good shopping and public transport is nearby, but you should analyze just how "nearby" and good this is, especially grocery stores. Some of this is covered in our writeups on Bangkok grocery stores / supermarkets and superstores and shopping centers. High speed (broadband) internet is available all over Bangkok and its suburbs, and in fact most provincial towns also have good broadband. This has been the case for a long time. Nonetheless, in some places there is only one ISP available to offer service, and some of those quasi-monopoly locations are notorious for poor performance. These and many other issues are discussed on our brother website, www.thailandguru.com (the owner of this business created both websites plus others), though, of course, most things regarding a particular place would be custom advice, and there are many things I would say but never write on the internet! While customers are usually shown homes by my fulltime staff (but often myself instead), I do teach my Thai staff ... as well as they teach me ... about many important issues regarding particular places and general Thailand things, and I'm usually available to answer any questions which my staff might not be able to answer to your satisfaction. It's good to have both Thais and a 14 year expat available to answer your questions. Founder's PhilosophyIt is our moral class and responsibility to show you the properties best suited for you, according to your requirements, desires, preferences, and budget. It is your home, which you will be living in, thereby having a substantial impact on your Thailand experience. We should advise you about both the advantages and disadvantages of each region and property, not just try to close sales and push only the good side. As founder and Managing Director, I have selectively hired the kind of people/agents who I believe care about our customers with compassion, are honest and not greedy. I have trained them to clearly conform with this class of life. Most commonly, customers point out one or more properties from our database which they like. We usually know of similar properties which are not yet listed in our database because we haven't had time to arrange access to the unoccupied property, get good photographs and details, and upload them to our website, especially in view of the quick turnover time of good places. We also liberally use co-agents (who we split commission with, but we should want to find the best home for you), in addition to fulltime employees, which saves everyone time and increases everyone's productivity. We know Bangkok well and have developed an intricate network of contacts. That's why we have thousands properties in our database at any particular time. However, we know of many additional properties at any given time. When you point out various properties with particular features you like, we try to respond by presenting additional properties along those lines. When our fulltime staff show properties to a customer, we listen to your comments on what you like and don't like, and then try to fine tune our search to save your time as well as ours, and find a place you will like and take. Sometimes, this may require our team to do considerable research and make arrangements for showing additional properties. The best things in life sometimes need a little time, but with minimal risk of wasting time. It's all about quality of life. Mark is my name. You can always reach me by my first name at this domain, or call on the phone and be transferred or leave a message (as I'm often not immediately available). However, for common questions, please see the other website mentioned above. Most of our staff speak good English, and as field staff they are far more familiar with the available properties than myself, the CEO, but sometimes it's good to talk with an expat about particular issues. As an expat here since 1994, it is my hope that you will come to appreciate the best aspects of Thailand while learning to deal with some of the difficult situations here. After Rental ServiceAfter a property is rented out, there are sometimes one or more problems discovered, such as a clothes washing machine malfunction, water heater failure, a/c issue, etc. While technically this matter is between the lessor and lessee, nonetheless the real estate agent often helps out with issues which arise soon after move-in, and our company also has certain people who help renters handle physical troubleshooting matters such as utilities or major appliances which present problems. Please note: We usually do not fix these problems ourselves, and instead help analyze the problem and find an appropriately skilled specialist to fix it. Sometimes, we will fix a problem ourselves, depending upon the kind of technical problem. The owner may be more familiar with their property and its issues, but sometimes it's best to have inputs from the real estate agency which handles similar problems with many properties and which performs a neutral role. If the owner (or sometimes their personal agent) doesn't speak good enough English, then we can help with communications. (The founder/owner of Prado Property Co., Ltd., also founded/owned a Thai-English translation & interpreter business, www.ThaiEnglish.com , under their other company, Export Quality Services Co., Ltd., as a one stop shop solution.) With technicians for fixing things, you will usually need an interpreter, and sometimes one who has a technical vocabulary or professional specialist dictionary. In any case, you can call us and talk about it, and we will do what we can with reasonable diligence. Property Management / Maintenance ServiceMany property owners request our assistance in property maintenance, to provide solutions for problems, because:
For properties which we got a commission on, we provide a reasonable amount of initial assistance at no charge, and often help for free later as well, depending on the problem and situation. Sometimes we are contacted by property owners who already have a tenant not thru our company, or else an owner who is our past customer but who needs enhanced assistance at this much later date. For these cases, we must work out a support arrangement. We have been asked by many owners to quote for a fixed-monthly-fee all-included property management service. We do not provide such a fixed-monthly-fee service because there is simply too much risk involved for us, and we think the monthly cost we would need to quote would add up for the property owner to where it's just not worth it. As an owner, if you come up with your own acceptable periodic rate and just put that amount aside into another bank account periodically, that money will add up to where you can deal with occasional big expenses, in most cases. Altogether, it is usually decided in the end to just deal with problems as they occur, and on a case by case basis, and time is wasted considering fixed-monthly-fee alternatives. Therefore, our solution is that we offer a case-by-case basis property maintenance service for fixing physical problems with properties and/or for inspections. (Of course, this service does not include finding tenants, which we do on a purely commission basis.) For fixing problems and inspections of specific problems, which includes a house call (or condo/apartment call) which require Thai staff to go out of the office, we normally negotiate these on a case by case basis. We may provide a free initial estimate, or we may immediately propose a small startup fee to even consider and analyze the problem, maybe 100 baht to 500 baht, and may wind up with a 1500 baht total fee including on-site inspection and sourcing, deploying, and managing repairs. It depends on the situation and negotiation. (We must cover our staff salary plus travel expenses plus overhead and consider loss of staff productivity otherwise. If it is near the initial rental period, exceptions apply.) However, if you need a ballpark figure for a complete inspection-and-repair job without talking in detail with us first, i.e., if you want to offload the whole matter onto us, then we may quote 1500 baht per day plus travel expenses plus any supplies to deal with your property management problem, plus the costs of any specialists (e.g., air conditioner technician, or roof repairman) and materials costs. The 1500 baht may be split into two 750 baht half-days, or according to other negotiations in advance. These are the typical rates requiring site visits. We must emphasize that many cases cost less than 1500 baht, and some cases cost more that 1500 baht, some much more than 1500 baht, when negotiated in detail in advance. The 1500 baht cases tend to be where an owner doesn't know what's going on and just wants someone to go find out and deal with it, and be done with it. 1500 baht equals approximately US $ 48 at the time this page was last updated (early 2008), but please check current rates. Our fee would be 1500 baht, not in dollars. Whenever feasible, we try to estimate and get agreement on fees as much in advance as we can. Our fee does not include any fees of any specialists we must bring in, or any materials costs such as replacement parts or new equipment, all of which would be extra and usually discussed with you for approval in advance of authorizing the work and/or purchase. We also must add our travel costs, normally taxi fare plus any tollway fees. Once agreed, our fee is payable separately of any other decisions made on whether or not to implement further work. You must agree to not hold us liable for any damages or losses. For example, if an air conditioner repairman does something to make the house burn down, you must not hold us liable, though you could hold the air conditioner repairman liable. (I'm from the USA, perhaps the most litigous "I'll sue you!" country in the world, hence expensive health care, and hope that never comes to Thailand...) If you do not agree to this, then we might be willing to renegotiate the rates and terms, or may decline to do any work. This service is offered to help property owners and tenants alike, who are having difficulty getting problems solved the right way, or who have an emergency. It's not worth losing a 50,000 baht per month renter over a 5000 baht one-time problem. Problems are better solved sooner than later; it's the same expense and time later as sooner, but minimizes tenant inconvenience when sooner. We have a lot of experience solving property problems. We do not promise to provide a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-all technician. Such a person doesn't exist in this world, except in Hollywood and peoples' imaginations. We do offer to provide someone experienced in going out to find out what problem exists and then finding a good person to solve the problem -- i.e., management. Often, we can solve it ourselves, without calling in anyone else. In any case, you can email or call us to talk about it. Additional Property Related ServicesSome of the following services are free for our customers. However, for people who are buying or renting a place without using our real estate agent services, but need help with other things, we offer the following additional services on either an hourly or daily basis or a fixed fee arrangement:
Important note: Most of the above we offer at no extra charge for customers who find a place to rent or to buy using our real estate agents. However, if you found a place on your own but need some assistance, we still may be able to help you.
Prado Property Co., Ltd.
Tel: +66-2-255-2970 or -2971 (international) or 02-255-2970 or -2971 Fax: +66-2-957-8733 Click here for email contact form Customer Feedback
If you are an existing customer, you may give us Customer Feedback.
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