Luxurious living With the quality of exceptional branded resort living now available it’s now possible to have the best of both worlds in Asia.

Luxurious living With the quality of exceptional branded resort living now available it’s now possible to have the best of both worlds in Asia.
by Nick AnthonyAdvertisement

In the late 1980s a new residential club was formed; offering spectacular US$2 million oceanfront villas, the best service Asia had ever seen, iconic traditional wooden architecture, soaring ceilings, 25metre pools and a serious international ownership cache – the estate offered a handful of villas for sale which through persistence and word of mouth sold out.
This estate, The Amanpuri, was not only a watershed development of luxury Asian Resort property but importantly set the stage and the strategy for a wave of privately owned, super luxurious, ultra exclusive, service orientated resort villas that today have a value of well over $2 billion in Thailand and Bali alone. Importantly, 40% of this entire value is or will be released for pre-sales in 2007 alone.

Still under supply?
Phuket was a sleepy island escape four years ago at about the same time that Indigo Real Estate was formed. A few small well-built developments started to gain momentum, and through smart developers, informed clients and a luxury focus it has developed over a remarkably rapid period to become one of the worlds hottest destinations for both new 5-star resorts and also for luxury villas, both resort and independently managed.

With 800+ private jet landings in 2006 and recent hotel announcements from India’s Taj Hotels, Dubai based Jumeirah, Raffles, Shangri La, Four Seasons, The Conrad, Alila Hotels, The Hyatt, Renaissance and the Chedi managers GHM, the island is on a development spree never imagined. Learning from the experience of the Aman and recent successes in the Caribbean nearly all luxury resort operators today combine a residential-resort component to their estate that helps finance their hotel strategies. This is a huge bonus for Asia’s smart brand name buyers – yielding architecturally superior properties, superb bespoke management, a generous yield that covers expenses and generally very limited availability. Over time these early buyers will be well rewarded.

To date sales have been brisk with operators often selling up to 30% on the project launch and are nearly all sold out by completion of the show villa, as buyers quickly make decisions based on the brands cache, the International experience, customer loyalty and in the case of the to be launched Taj Phuket as example, absolute rarity: it is the first time that a Taj Villa can be privately owned – a villa like which is rarely found in the world today.

Asia on the doorstep
With 150 Billionaires in Asia and a massive chunk of the world’s population within a five hour flight of Phuket it’s not hard to see where the local demand is coming from, plus with global access getting easier, direct flights into Phuket from Europe, massive real estate booms globally providing fuel and tropical living providing fire this potent combination is driving the demand. Add capital city pollution, an ability to freelance and be an entrepreneur anywhere, earlier retirees and an expat exodus from Hong Kong to family places that offer international level education, quality healthcare and good “life infrastructure” (restaurants, spas, shopping and like minded people) and you realize that the trend and buying will be long term and is naturally creating a superb permanent option, an option that is bettered by very places globally.

Finding your Shangri-La is not easy, and buyers are often conflicted (work/family) from making a pure lifestyle choice, however with the quality of exceptional branded resort living now available it’s now possible to have the best of both worlds in Asia.

Asian resort property remains a strong buy, with all key Phuket areas fully built out and sold out by 2010. Bali is a good alternative and is seeing also superb resort properties, Vietnam is learning fast with the GHM managed Nam Hai now open, Malaysia attracts retirees and is coming at it smartly from a policy perspective whilst in the Philippines we hear machinations within the current administration calling for a complete overhaul and re-vitalization of its stagnant tourism industry with an expected knock-on effect to property buyers.

Expect relaxation in all Asian countries of property laws, attracting capital, skills and good people and expect to hear a lot more about luxury Asian resort property – we live in exciting times.

Nick Anthony is managing partner of Indigo Real Estate, a Phuket based realtor who specializes in luxury resort property in Thailand, Bali, Vietnam and some of the world’s most dynamic resort destinations. Visit www.indigoRE.com.