Bangkok Developers Exchange Fire as Condo Price War Erupts

BANGKOK — A full-scale price war has broken out in Bangkok’s real estate market, shattering a fragile detente among the city’s top developers to keep prices at a premium. Sansiri, one of Thailand’s largest luxury property firms, ambushed its rivals with a 20-percent price cut on units at its FLO by Sansiri development in Khlong San. “That attack was entirely unprovoked,” Mr. Veravit Sattayanon, Executive Vice President of Product Development at Pruksa Real Estate, said, astonished that anyone would attack him or his company. “It was pure horror. Two of my best agents were caught in the blast zone when they spotted an online ad for a three-bedroom, four-bath condo priced a million-two below anything else on the market.” In response, Pruksa immediately ordered all his staff to assume strategic offensive positions, countering with zero-interest financing on any unit priced at 2.5 million baht or more for the first 24 months—“a level of destruction I dare anyone to match.” Land and Houses’ Senior Vice President for Marketing, Ms. Roongrote Rangsiyopash, only learned of Sansiri’s move as she passed a bus with a digital sign proclaiming the blitz. “It was like reliving the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis all over again,” she said, quivering at the memories of financial carnage. Taking shelter behind a 30-metre digital billboard along the Victory Monument elevated highway, she promptly activated her Office of Special Operations, instructing her staff to “implement Flying Garuda,” a directive that unleashed a scorched-earth bombing campaign offering a free 250,000-baht vacation with every signed contract for a property in the Wan Vayla Na Chao Phraya Dusit high-rise. At press time, prospective buyers collectively said they had plenty of information for now, and would “definitely get back to you tomorrow.”