Habitat International 29 (2005) 439–452 Housing speculation in Bangkok: lessons for emerging economies Sopon Pornchokchai*, Ranjith Perera School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand Received 23 May 2003; received in revised form 23 December 2003; accepted 14 January 2004 Abstract This paper discusses the state of housing speculation in Bangkok and the extent to which the 1997 financial crisis has affected the housing market. Since the mid-1980s, housing production in Bangkok has reached an extremely large volume and the private sector has played the dominant role in this development. However, due to the inadequacy of market information, uninformed speculation, and excessive production, some 350,000 fully completed housing units, most of which have been sold by their developers, remain unoccupied in Bangkok. This large surplus of housing has hindered the recovery of the market after the crisis. The implications of this experience support the view that there is a need to establish a property information centre and an estate management bureau to support efficient recovery of the market. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Speculation; Housing; Financial crisis; Bangkok 1. Introduction Housing development in Thailand has experienced phenomenal levels of production during the last two decades. During this time, housing development has evolved from a state-led housing program focused on low-income people to a predominantly free-market operated by private developers who can efficiently provide low-priced housing without subsidy from the government. The housing market in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR) experienced boom conditions from 1986 to 1996. The number of housing units produced per year exceeded 100,000 in this period. The public’s housing needs were largely met through the efforts of the private sector. When the economies of Southeast Asia were hit by a financial crisis in 1997, the housing boom ARTICLE IN PRESS *Corresponding author. Agency for Real Estate Affairs, 55/40-42 Nonsee Road, Bankok 10120, Thailand. Tel.: +66-2-295-3905; fax: +66-2-295-1154. E-mail address: sopon@area.co.th (S. Pornchokchai). 0197-3975/$-see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2004.01.002