Thai property market to benefit from eased LTV rules

Central bank relaxes loan-to-value limits for co-borrowers

Real estate industry stakeholders in Thailand see the sector rebounding on the central bank’s recent moves to ease onerous loan-to-value regulations, The Nation is reporting.

The relaxation of LTV rules for co-borrowers will lead to an improvement of up to two percent for the property market for the rest of 2019, Issara Boonyoung, chief executive officer of Kanda Group, told The Nation.

“This market represents about 20 per cent of the total property market value, which is expected to be worth about THB760 billion (USD25 billion) this year,” Issara said.

Under new rules announced Thursday, the BOT will allow co-borrowers who do not own any other residence to have access to mortgages representing as much as 90 percent of a condominium value. For a single detached house or townhouse, the loan-to-value ratio can be as generous as 95 percent.

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Such a measure, Issara pointed out, will let co-borrowers make a downpayment of as much as 10 percent for condos and five percent for single-detached homes and townhouses.

The original LTV measures, enforced in April, reduced the LTV ratio to 80 percent for borrowers seeking residences valued at THB10 million (USD314,700) or higher. Officials also required a minimum downpayment of 10 to 20 percent for second mortgages, and 30 percent for subsequent mortgages.

As a result, homebuyers sped up transfers of residential projects and completed them in the first quarter of the year, leading to a drop in the second quarter.