By Jon Fernquest

More foreigners doing business in Thailand means more business ideas and technologies for Thais to learn from, choose from, and adopt both for domestic production and for export markets.

This is at least one way of looking at foreign business in Thailand, a win-win situation, rather than a win-lose situation.

This week Bangkok Post reporter Nina Suebsukcharoen interviewed Wez Barber, the managing director of Bangkok Finder a new high-end real estate agency in Bangkok. Wez Barber started up a successful home repair and renovation business in Bangkok that he later sold to his business partner.

During the interview he talks about his business experiences doing business in Bangkok and the ways he hopes to differentiate his new real estate agency from others.

Mr Barber tells an interesting little story of how his renovation firm made use of the common shophouses that line Bangkok streets. One of his firm’s strategies was to buy four or five shophouses, tear down the walls, and build a small shopping arcade or hotel.

Yaowarat [Chinatown] shophouses are just too expensive for this strategy nowadays, but it’s still possible to buy shophouses towards the end of Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok (e.g. Soi 120) for about two million baht. Mr. Barber suggests that the shophouse could be renovated and turned into a studio loft apartment and rented out for 10,000 to 12,000 per month.

Mr. Barber has already planned out a business strategy for his new real estate agency. The agency is planning to focus on rentals for foreign expatriate executives working in Thailand and not on the real estate sales that most real estate agencies focus on. The firm is also focusing on the wive’s of ex-pat executives, not the executives themselves. The wife usually takes care of finding a place to live for their busy husband. The location is often chosen near the school that their children will be attending. The many international schools in the Bang Na-Srinakarin area (Bangkok Pattana on Soi LaSalle, St Andrews on Soi Baring, others on Srinakarin Road) has increased demand for housing in this area with house prices generally over 40,000 baht per month.

Mr. Barber has already planned out a business strategy for his new real estate agency. The agency is planning to focus on rentals for foreign expatriate executives working in Thailand and not on the real estate sales that most real estate agencies focus on. The firm is also focusing on the wive’s of ex-pat executives, not the executives themselves. The wife usually takes care of finding a place to live for their busy husband. The location is often chosen near the school that their children will be attending. The many international schools in the Bang Na-Srinakarin area (Bangkok Pattana on Soi LaSalle, St Andrews on Soi Baring, others on Srinakarin Road) has increased demand for housing in this area with house prices generally over 40,000 baht per month.

Mr Barber also plans on providing much more personalised and speedier service to clients than the larger more established real estate companies provide. Part of this strategy is to provide service in different languages. Westerners and Indians may have good English language skills, but winning Chinese and Japanese clients requires the ability to speak their native languages. In the case of the Japanese, better deals on rental prices can be offered, since Japanese typical end up paying a 20% premium over market prices to their real estate agencies.

To read more, the actual article can be found here.