Everyone thinks they can be a real estate agent in Pattaya

There is a moment that happens to a lot of people who move to Pattaya. They buy a condo, or help a friend find one, and they think: this is easy. I could do this. Within a month they are a real estate agent in Pattaya, with a Facebook page and a set of business cards to prove it.

I own a real estate agency, so you can decide for yourself how much of what follows is self-interest. But I have watched this for long enough to have a firm opinion, and I am going to give it to you plainly.

Why it looks so easy

In Thailand you do not need a licence to act as a property agent. There is no exam, no register and no regulator that can strike you off. If you can find someone with a property and someone with money, you can stand between them and ask for a commission.

So people do. The retired engineer who has bought three condos. The bar owner whose regulars keep asking about villas. The friend of a friend who "knows a developer". The person who did well in sales back home and assumes property is the same job in better weather.

From the outside it looks like easy money: show a few condos, take three per cent, go to the beach. I understand the appeal. I also see what happens next.

What the job actually is

Showing property is the smallest part of this work. It is the part anyone can do, and it is the part the customer sees, which is why so many people believe it is the whole job.

The real job is everything that can go wrong between "I'll take it" and the day the money and the title change hands. Here is some of what a competent agent is expected to know:

• How foreign ownership works in a condominium, and whether there is foreign quota left in this particular building.
• What the title deed really says, and what is registered against it.
• Whether the person selling is the owner, and has the right to sell.
• What the transfer fees and taxes will come to, and who traditionally pays which.
• How funds must arrive in Thailand for a foreign buyer to register a condo in their own name.
• What a fair contract looks like, and which clauses will hurt you later.
• What the building is like to live in: the juristic office, the sinking fund, the neighbours, the debt.

Get one of those wrong and a buyer can lose a deposit, or own something they cannot legally register, or find out on transfer day that the costs are several hundred thousand baht more than they were told. I have seen each of these. In nearly every case there was a cheerful, confident "agent" in the middle who did not know what they did not know.

The work permit nobody mentions

Here is something the new arrivals tend to skip. A foreigner working as an agent in Thailand needs the legal right to work here. That means a work permit, tied to a real company that pays tax and employs Thai staff.

Many of the people handing you a business card in a coffee shop do not have one. That is their risk, but it becomes yours too. Someone who is working illegally has no office to visit, no company behind them and every reason to disappear when a deal turns difficult. We covered the rules in can foreigners work as real estate agents in Pattaya.

What it costs you

The damage is not only to the customers of bad agents. It lands on everyone.

Buyers get advice from people who have never completed a transfer. Confidence is free, and it is easy to mistake for knowledge.

Sellers find their property listed by a dozen people they have never met, at four different prices, with photographs lifted from someone else's website. Serious buyers notice, and it makes the property look tired.

The honest agents, including the good independent ones, spend their days being compared with people who have no costs, no office and no accountability.

Pattaya itself gets the reputation. Every bad story about property here travels a long way.

I am not saying only big agencies are any good

Some of the best agents I know work alone. They have done it for years, they know their buildings, they turn work down when it is not right for the client, and they would be good at this job under any system. Experience and honesty are what matter, not the size of the sign.

What I object to is the idea that this is a job you can pick up between breakfast and lunch because you once bought a condo. You would not let someone rewire your house because they own a screwdriver.

How to tell the difference

You cannot ask to see a licence, because there isn't one. So ask other things:

1. Where is your office? Go and look at it.
2. Which company do you work for, and how long has it been trading?
3. Do you have a work permit? A professional will not be offended by the question.
4. How many transfers have you personally completed at the land office?
5. Can you give me the full costs of this purchase in writing, today?
6. Who do I speak to if I have a problem with you?

A real agent answers all six without hesitating. A pretender changes the subject, usually to how good the deal is and how quickly you need to decide.

If you want a longer checklist, see our guide on how to choose an estate agent in Pattaya, and our earlier piece asking whether there are too many property agents in Pattaya.

My honest view

Until Thailand licenses agents, the checking is left to you. That is not fair, but it is how things are. Buying a property is probably the largest purchase you will make here. Spend ten minutes finding out who is really advising you before you spend ten million baht on what they say.

And if you are thinking of becoming an agent yourself: good. The industry needs good people. Join an established agency, learn the job properly, and do it legally. We wrote a guide to getting started for exactly that reason.

If you would like to talk to an agency that has been here since 1978, contact us.