A $445 Phra Khanong condo: what a DTV nomad wants from a building

Joseph pays 15,000 baht a month, about US$445, for a renovated one-bedroom five minutes from Phra Khanong BTS. In Australia, he says, almost double that bought a room in a shared house. He found this place only after his first choice turned out to be too far out.

How his rent compares with the other homes from our tours: Bangkok rents from real tours.

The numbers

• Rent: 15,000 baht a month (about US$445), for a renovated unit in Phra Khanong.
• Getting around: about five minutes’ walk to Phra Khanong BTS.
• Utilities and size: not discussed on camera.
• The unit: one bedroom with a separate kitchen, a recliner sofa that came with the room, a desk in the bedroom and a washing machine on the balcony. The bookshelf and tables are from IKEA.
• Food: he orders most meals through Grab. A protein bowl or wrap is his daily default, and the kitchen mostly handles eggs and yogurt for breakfast.

Who it suits: one person who wants a quiet room in a walkable area and plans to spend the day out. Who should skip it: anyone who wants a new building, a serious gym or a place to work from the lobby.

Why Joseph moved on from his first condo

His first condo in Bang Na was one he liked, mainly for its amenities, but it was too far out from everything else. After a year there he worked out what he actually needed: “the only two things that I care about are the location and the room itself.”

That cut the search down to Phra Khanong. He now goes to gym classes elsewhere in the city and works from cafes, so a building gym and co-working room would go unused. His rule of thumb: big amenities mean sacrificing something else.

What he likes

• A walkable block. Sidewalks along the Sukhumvit side are wide and fairly flat, which is rare in Bangkok. Side streets in other areas, he says, are cracked and narrow.
• Ekkamai on foot. He walks there often. Gateway has cafes, a cinema and other entertainment, and the mall opposite has more upscale restaurants.
• A lobby with a straight line to the lift. There is no long walk across a big site, and no row of security guards watching you cross it.
• Machines in the lobby. One sells drinks and snacks at 7-Eleven prices and takes QR payment, TrueMoney included. Another dispenses basic medicine.
• Quiet. Nothing from the road reaches the bedroom.

“I actually prefer when the lobbies are a little bit relaxed and you don’t have like 10 security guards staring at you every time you walk in.”

Joseph

The trade-offs

• The gym is small, and he thinks the air-con goes off in the early afternoon. He doesn’t use it.
• The rooftop is underused. There is a garden, a pool and a view of the BTS line. The pool is fine; he has swum there about five times.
• The lifts are a little slow, but there are four. He asks for a low floor so he’s never waiting through other people’s stops.
• It is an older building, and it shows its age. Other rooms he saw had messed-up floors, tired paint and poor maintenance, which is why he held out for a renovated one.

Choosing a unit: his checklist

1. Decide your two non-negotiables before you view anything. For him it was location and room condition.
2. Pick a low floor if lift queues bother you.
3. Face away from Sukhumvit Road. Units facing Sukhumvit Road are noisier, he says, so pick the quiet side.
4. Listen at the unit. His old condo had road noise he tuned out, until he noticed it again.
5. Hold out for the renovated room. He passed on other rooms in older buildings because they were run down.

Finding a place and an agent

Joseph started in Facebook rental groups. Post your area, budget and must-haves, and agents message you listings. Treat each one with care, because not every agent is legitimate.

Then check the buildings you like on DDproperty or PropertyHub, which show every available unit.

Good to know: the free Move Planner can help you compare areas before you start viewing. More in renting and condo life.

Paying for things on a DTV

Joseph holds a Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) and says he has no Thai bank account. Instead he uses a TrueMoney wallet with its advanced features switched on, which lets him pay by PromptPay QR at most vendors. More in working and digital nomad guides.

His top-up routes:

• Cash at 7-Eleven. Withdraw at an ATM, then top up the wallet over the counter.
• A Thai friend. Send baht from your home account to their Thai bank account through Wise, then they transfer to your wallet. He pays about 60 to 70 baht for the Wise leg and no ATM fee.

The catch is that this only works once you know someone you can ask.

Is it good value?

Joseph’s budget logic is that a low base cost leaves room for everything else. A condo like his is under US$500, and eating out costs US$5 to 15 a meal (his figures), so he can see friends for lunch several times a week.

In Australia, he says, three delivered meals a day would bankrupt him within a year.

His advice

He left corporate tech after several years, and he’s wary of treating Thailand as a fix. If you arrive disciplined, he says, the country gives you time back through convenience and a good mood from the weather and the people. If your mental state isn’t right to begin with, Thailand won’t really change anything.