Mae Sai - Typical Day? 04/03/2010 Shop House

Today was pretty typical. We slept in and after doing the typical morning stuff Daeng ask me if I would like to go see a house for sale that her friend had told her about.

We have looked at over 200 houses for sale in the Mae Sai area already but I said sure, why not. We had talked many times over the last few years that when we find the right house we would know it.

We hopped on the motorbike and rode over to the area where route 1290 crosses route #1. When we got to the house a guy that Daeng has know from childhood was working on the house. He showed us around the property.

It has a small one bedroom house with an outside cooking area and three other rooms, a water tank, it's own well, a car port and a big lot. Daeng's friend says the man he worked for had bought it for 1,100,000 THB ($34,375 USD) and after fixing it up he wanted 1,550,000 THB ($48,437 USD).

We liked the place except for the metal roof on the three outside rooms. We figured the bedroom and bath in the little house for us. The living room in the little house would be for the rest of the family to watch TV, etc.

The three other rooms could be for Daeng's Mother and rest of family. We met the man that was doing the deal and told him we would think it over. He told us to let him know what we wanted changed and he could do it. He suggested western toilets and one air conditioning unit for the master bedroom.

Daeng and I rode around the area and came back to this property a couple of times. We agreed that it had a lot of potential. This may be the place for us with lots of room for expansion, even room for a pool.

As we were headed home we saw another "For Sale" sign on a shop house. A shop house, sometimes called a store front house, has room for a store or shop at ground level and living quarters upstairs. What the heck, at least call and see how much they want for it.

Daeng called and was told 1,600,000 THB for both sections. I ask Daeng if she was sure it wasn't for each side as it was a double shop house. She said: No, both." We talked about looking at it and she called the man back. In about 10 minutes he was there and open the place up.

This place was huge and completely finished and ready to live in. When you opened the security doors, the front and side is all glass store front with two floors of living area above.

The second floor could be partitioned off and a big bathroom added for our living quarters. The third floor already had three large rooms and a bath. There was a restroom on first floor, too. The cheapest shop house we had looked at was half this size and 2,000,000 THB.

Daeng, aways being thrifty, ask if he would discount the property a little.

He said: "No discount but he would pay all the taxes and transfer fees so we could move in for the 1,600,000 THB ($50,000 USD)". We told him we would talk about it and let him know.

We went to our guest house and looked at the pictures we had taken and talked about it more.

We both loved the place so we called him back and ask it we could bring the family to see it tomorrow, Easter Sunday, around 1:00 PM. He said yes as he would be doing some cleaning there tomorrow.

Daeng talked to the rest of the family as we were excited over this shop house.

We'll see what happens tomorrow.