Thursday, April 21, 2005 :: Chris
Cheap Bangkok Long Stay Accommodation
[Note: I've written an updated, longer version of this article about cheap Bangkok accommodation for my other site Travelhappy.info. Please follow the link the latest version. I've also set up the site Apartment-Bangkok.com to provide more accommodation hunting info.
If you're looking for Bangkok hotels, follow this link for a comprehensive list of Bangkok hotels you can browse and book online.]

Here's what we discovered on our recent search for a decent apartment in Bangkok. Thailand's capital is definitely not the cheapest place to live in Thailand - if you head out to rural capitals like Surin (now home to Jerry Hopkins, co-author of No One Here Gets Out Alive, the definitive Doors biography, fact fans) you'll be paying about 100 pounds a month to rent a full blown three bedroom house. But after being transient for the last two years and having just lived in a wooden house in Hua Hin for two months, we wanted a real apartment of our own for a while. We had a budget of 20,000B per month for a one bed furnished apartment, including all bills - that's just under 300 pounds a month. There's water and electric, obviously, and electric can be a killer if you use air-conditioning a lot. Budget for 2000B to 3000B a month on A/C. You need to check what the apartment charges per unit of electricity and the flat monthly rate for water, plus if there are any other extras.

Actual househunting in Bangkok can be quite frustrating if you're in the 20,000 and below bracket. The internet is of limited use to do the groundwork because many properties don't bother with websites or Internet listings and those that do are either for pretty expensive places or have sites so badly put together that they're difficult to understand. Estate agents tend to focus on 30,000 and up as their price range - Hamptons is chockful of great but unaffordable apartments. RoomInBangkok has a handful of sub-20000 places advertised on its site, as does real estate agents EvesHouse.com, but I didn't get a reply from either site after I submitted the form specifying what I was looking for. I've subsequently discovered that ThaiApartment.com, Holt-Realty.com, Savvy Apartments and SunBelt Asia have easy-to-use property sites but they're all slim pickings for the sub-20,000 househunter.

The Bangkok Post newspaper is the way forward for finding apartments. The best value place we found was easily White Egret, a set of quiet serviced apartments aimed at business travellers which costs 9000B per month. It really is as good as its very informative website makes out - clean, well-presented, cheap, plus a restaurant on the premises and wireless internet at about 60B an hour. The only drawback with the White Egret is its location - it's the other side of the river, cut off from the BTS Skytrain and Metro networks. Getting anywhere will require a taxi ride to the BTS station at the very least, which becomes a drag for daily journies. This place, however, could be ideal for tourists staying in Bangkok for longer than a couple of days - it charges 750B a night and compares favourably with hotels which charge twice that.

The other cheapy staple of English teachers and other impoverished farangs in Bangkok are the Grand Hi Tech Tower and City Mansion, both of which sound a bit grotty - we didn't pay them a visit. JS Tower looked worthy of investigation, but we never made it up there either. They were charging about 18,000 for a 50sqm room.

We had stayed previously for a month at The Victory, which provided a pleasant 32sqm studio flat for 14,000B a month plus bills. The staff were friendly and the building, a converted hotel, very grand and extremely close to Victory Monument BTS. They also offer unlimited high speed internet access in your room for 1500B extra a month. This made it something of a winner. However, the rooms, while well turned out, are a bit old - the A/C unit in particular chucked out as much dust as it did air. Not good if you've got allergies like (oh, hurray) me. Two people in a studio for any longer than a month is also a recipe for homocide. We had to hope to find something bigger but similar pricewise.

House By The Pond had a special offer going of 19,000B for one month according to the Bangkok Post, but we arrived to be told the special offer had finished "yesterday" and a truly lovely one bedroom apartment in their converted period house complete with gurgling indoor fountain and general sense of tranquility was back to its usual price of 26,000B. That left me feeling not quite so tranquil. If you can afford it, House By The Pond is well worth investigating - their website doesn't really do it justice. The location of HBTP, just off Sukhumvit Soi 22 in a quiet lane about 15 minutes walk to the BTS, is also ideal.

Luckily, we discovered what became our home almost next door - Belleville, which has several studio and one bedroom apartments in immaculate condition. We couldn't believe our luck. Hardwood floors, fully furnished, TV, fridge, microwave, kettle, bath and shower, kitchen (no oven), apartment cleaning every day... it's got the lot. The one bed apartment is pretty compact but has a good use of space and a general good feel to it. The staff are also extremely helpful and there's wireless internet throughout the building. This is free at the of writing but also very flaky - apparently they're planning to upgrade it. The price: 16,000B for a month, 15000 if we sign a six month lease. Belleville doesn't have a website, but they advertise regularly in the Bangkok Post. Their number is 02-663-1151.

Finally, here's a handy list of Bangkok apartments with websites, a lot of which I haven't investigated.

UPDATE: I got rid of a couple of typos.

UPDATE 22/06/05: Bangkok Craigslist has launched, and with it, a whole new way of finding accommodation and flat shares in the city. Have also subsequently found Mr Room Finder, which is a promising site for BKK rentals too. Also worth checking on the forums at Thaivisa.com, which are very active and full of knowledgable expats.

UPDATE 05/11/05: Homespace Thailand is an excellent property site that gives clear descriptions and lots of photos with each listing - they have a 20,000B and Under category too, as well as the usual more expensive rental properties. Possibly the best Thai listings site that I've seen. I found it via BahtSold.com, which is another great site that covers all of Thailand, selling all manner of goods including rental properties. They aggregate rental listings and provide websites and / or phone numbers of the agents.

More on Bangkok accommodation:
Spike | Google | Amazon UK | Amazon US | Wikipedia | Open Directory [permalink] | [0 comments]

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