Thai Home Transfers Rose 22.9% by Number but 15.5% by Value as Condominium Permits Fell 54.5%

Thai residential transfers rose 22.9% by number and 15.5% by value in the second quarter, while permits to build condominiums fell 54.5%, REIC figures show.

Residential ownership transfers in Thailand rose 22.9% by number and 15.5% by value in the second quarter of 2026 against the same quarter of 2025, according to the nationwide market release the Real Estate Information Center published on 30 September. Across the first half of the year the same two rates were 17.6% and 9.8% — the count outrunning the money in both periods, and by a wide margin each time.

The count is growing faster than the value in both periods

That gap is the most informative thing in the release. A market in which the number of transfers rises faster than their combined value is adding activity at the cheaper end of its own range rather than evenly across it. The pattern holds in the quarter and over the half year, which makes it a direction rather than a one-off quirk, and it is the kind of split a single headline growth rate would bury. It does not follow that any particular home became cheaper; what the two rates establish is where the extra volume is coming from.

The building pipeline is moving away from the one product foreigners can own

Permits to build housing fell 4.0% in the second quarter, but the composition matters far more than the total. Condominium permits dropped 54.5% over the year while detached-house permits rose 13.7%. Across the first half, condominium permits were down 3.8% and detached up 14.3%. Land subdivision approvals fell 34.6% in the quarter, to 6,196 units, and 39.7% across the half year, to 12,141 units. New mortgage lending, meanwhile, grew 18.4% in the quarter and 12.2% over the half.

For a non-resident buyer this composition is the story. Thailand permits freehold ownership of condominium units, subject to a 49% foreign cap per building, and does not permit foreign freehold ownership of land — so a detached house is not a product an overseas buyer can hold outright. The pipeline is tilting hard toward exactly that product and away from the one that is open. A condominium permit figure down 54.5% in a quarter is a supply signal aimed squarely at the foreign-accessible segment.

There is also a timing point worth drawing out. Permits were up 10.6% across the half year but down 4.0% in the second quarter. Read together, the two rates say the half-year increase did not come from the second quarter.

Why this release sits underneath our own Thai price

Glopra's Thailand price is 77,534.5 US dollars per transferred unit, and it is built from this exact release family: 167,665 units transferred nationwide in the first half of 2026 with a total transfer value of 429,839 million Thai baht, which gives 2,563,678 baht per unit. Both of those aggregates are officially published, so the per-unit figure is their quotient and not an estimate. Today's release reports the same first-half growth rates — 17.6% by number and 9.8% by value — that sit behind those inputs.

The figure covers every residential type across the whole country, which is why it is far below our city rows and is not comparable with them. Our Bangkok row, for contrast, carries 125,600 US dollars for a one-bedroom condominium against an asking rent of 760 US dollars a month, both medians from a single survey of the same city and the same segment. The national number and the Bangkok number answer different questions and should not be set against each other.

We publish no national Thai rent, and the row writes out the reason instead of showing a blank: no publisher states a Thai nationwide average rent as a level rather than an index or a percentage change, so there is nothing that can honestly be paired with the official transfer price. That absence is the mirror image of the price. On this market the official record measures what changed hands, and leaves the rental side to publishers who report movement without level.

Sources: Real Estate Information Center (REIC), Government Housing Bank of Thailand, press release No. 295 on the nationwide residential market in the second quarter and first half of 2026, 30 September 2026 https://www.reic.or.th/Activities/PressRelease/295

Market data: Thailand · Phuket · Chiang Mai · Pattaya