Internal information for property buyers in Thailand - Asia Property Awards

Wittaya Apirakvirya, CEO of Thailand Marketplaces (Developer) within PropertyGuru Group, is committed to helping potential buyers of real estate in Thailand make informed decisions through portals that bring together in-depth reviews and complete property listings. Major brands he works on include DDProperty, the country's largest online real estate portal; ThinkofLiving.com, a website offering expert reviews of new properties in Thailand; and Thailand Property Awards, which are certainly familiar to readers of this magazine.

Wittaya, a Thai national with a background in computer engineering, co-founded ThinkofLiving.com with two friends in 2011 and personally developed the website. The website was created to fill an information gap in the market by providing knowledgeable and unbiased insights into new properties from a professional's perspective. All reviewers on the site are trained architects.

We position ourselves as a buyer's friend, someone you would turn to before buying a house,” he says. - We try to give buyers all the information they need by explaining weaknesses, highlighting strengths and generally presenting projects in a balanced way. We don't let developers read our reviews before we publish them. We are in the business of matching the right buyer with the right project.

ThinkofLiving.com became part of PropertyGuru Group in 2021. Wittaya is also responsible for overseeing DDProperty and the real estate awards. He says there are significant opportunities for developers on DDProperty.

We want to encourage the use of all the sales and marketing tools we offer to community developers,” he says. Major initiatives are planned for the coming year in our division, including providing developers and buyers with deeper data and analytics tools based on the company's consumer sentiment index, other surveys and a wide range of other quantitative information from sites and partners.

We also have many marketing and sales tools that allow Thai developers to reach beyond the Thai audience within the DDProperty portfolio. We have a project called China Solutions that supports Thai developers in their efforts to sell Thai projects overseas, in China and Singapore for example,” says Wittaya.

Wittaya Apirakvirya says the overall outlook for the real estate market in Thailand is relatively positive. A recent survey of Thailand's consumer sentiment index showed a significant improvement in the third quarter of 2022. This was the largest quarter-on-quarter increase in consumer confidence in the region. We see a recovery in Thailand, which is in line with the overall market situation. Some people are starting to worry about inflation next year, but Thailand is actually performing well in terms of both sentiment and future prospects.