House Hunting In Phuket

After a wonderful time travelling, it was time to go back to our little island of Phuket! This time, we decided to live in Chalong, which is a more suburban area where many expats settle. It is famous for its roundabout which gets traffic jams daily and Chalong pier, where many boat trips depart from. We booked a room at Happy Days, a popular drinking joint on the pier road which also offers a few cheap rooms (http://www.happydaysguesthouse.com). We assumed we would need at least 10 days to visit houses and make a decision.

Phuket has accommodations for all budgets and all standards. The prices vary a lot according to area and location. It can cost the same to live in a studio apartment in Patong, or a 2 bedroom house in Chalong, or a pool house in Paklok! Long term rentals are very common as Phuket hosts many expats. You can easily find furnished rentals too. Buying is another story. Foreigners aren't technically allowed to buy land in Thailand, they can only own 49% of a property. There are ways to go around this using property lawyers but I don’t have enough inside information to post on here.

The first day of house hunting, we walked around Chalong by ourselves. Many neighbourhoods are easily accessible on foot near the pier if you don’t mind sweating a bit under the Thai sun! Armed with our local cell phones, we called houses with For Rent signs. Most were really Thai style inside, decorated poorly with old school furniture and pastel coloured curtains and tiles. We did visit a beautiful property but with its 4 bedrooms, it was way too big for just two of us.

On the second day, we had arranged for an agent to show us around a few properties. We met Wellta from House in Phuket (www.houseinphuket.com). We had fallen in love with her website which allows you to search through properties according to location, budget or amenities. It is very user friendly, with many pictures. We saw 3 houses that day. They all had pros and cons, but Chris’ heart was set on the very first one we visited. It had a big outside area with grass; the inside of the house was bright and airy, with cheerful yellow paint and modern furniture. After one day to ponder our decision, we agreed to rent this cute 2-bedroom house for 1 year! We had to leave 2 months deposit and we moved in within a few days!

Our house in Chalong, Phuket

Our house-hunting saga only lasted a couple days! How simple was that?