We arrived by bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai around 5 pm. We didn’t book the hotel in advance, hoping that we would find an apartment today. There were several compounds with swimming pools in mind, their addresses on the map. So we went from the songthaew bus station straight there. An hour later we were already unpacking our things in a small apartment (bedroom + living room), which we rented for 16 days for 6 thousand baht ($187).
After our large 130-meter apartment, which we rented through Airbnb, in Chiang Rai we lived for a week in a tiny room in a hotel, which cost us 500 baht per day for three. Living in a hotel for another 16 days in Chiang Mai was a dubious prospect, so it was decided to move into a condo, and the sooner the better. Usually the standard scheme works well: you check into a hotel for two days, and during this time you look for an apartment or house. But I absolutely didn’t want to spend two of the 16 days allotted for Chiang Mai on solving housing issues. Yes, and pay an extra thousand baht for the hotel too. That’s why we decided to take an adventure: look for an apartment immediately upon arrival. And if all else fails, then at any time you can check into the nearest hotel and continue your search in the morning.
The most important thing is to know in which area of the city there is a lot of housing for rent. In Chiang Mai, this is the Maya supermarket area and nearby streets on the outskirts of the city, closer to Mount Suthep. There are dozens of high-rise condos here! There are budget ones with tiny rooms, and there are slightly richer ones with one-bedroom apartments, swimming pools and gyms. The Internet is full of information about condos in Chiang Mai, so we knew the approximate prices in advance. Out of all of them, we chose Chom Doi Condo. I liked that there were two multi-story buildings and a large swimming pool. Arinka loves to swim, and this is a significant plus. True, we arrived already at the beginning of seven in the evening. The round building was completely empty, there was no one at the reception. And in the triangular one we were met by the grandmother-watchwoman. Sasha asked if they had apartments for rent for a month. She replied that there were two apartments - one larger for 9 thousand baht, the second smaller - for 8 thousand baht. Then Sasha told his grandmother that we would only live for 16 days, so we wanted a discount. They say that usually in Chiang Mai, owners do not want to rent out a condo for less than a month. That's why we came up with this negotiation strategy: find out the price of a monthly rental, and then ask for a discount for a shorter period.
The watchwoman immediately began calling the owners of the apartments. They agreed to rent out the larger one for 16 days for 6 thousand baht + electricity and water. If we divide this amount by day, it turns out that we pay only 400 baht per day ($12.5) for a one-bedroom apartment for short-term rental. At the same time, we did not check into a hotel, which saved 1000 baht. And I don’t think that for 15-14 days - if we were looking for an apartment from a hotel - the rent would be cheaper.
There are only two large apartments like ours on each floor - perhaps with the exception of the top one. The rest are modest studios.
This is our living room. There is a small kitchenette with a refrigerator and microwave. I heat up store-bought food in it, bake potatoes, fry bacon, and even made soup once. You have to dodge because there is no stove.
This is a shower and toilet. It is very convenient that there are two entrances to it: from the bedroom and from the corridor.
And this is the bedroom. The bed is very wide, about two meters, we can fit everything.
The apartment has air conditioning and a fan, but in winter in Chiang Mai they are not needed at all. It doesn't get hot in the shade during the day.
There is a swimming pool downstairs that we can also use.
A small gym where only Arina exercises so far.
I will not give contact details of this particular apartment owner, since the compound is large, and I think that if this apartment is occupied, there will always be another one. As for our apartment specifically - 334 on the third floor of a triangular building - it turned out to be not very clean. I tried to wash it as best I could. But if you compare an apartment with an old T-shirt, it is easier to buy a new one than to wash the old one.
Chom Doi Condo compound on the map:
Is it realistic to find an apartment in a condo in Chiang Mai in the evening if you need to live in it not for two or three months, but only for two weeks? Everything is real, the main thing is to prepare in advance and believe that everything will work out.
If you're looking at wintering in Asia or just planning an extended vacation, check out these other posts on vacation rentals in Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines:
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We returned from Laos with a six-month Thai visa in our pocket, and the time has come to tell you about our accommodation. A month before the trip for a visa, we lived in the Emporium Residence condo, which is not much different from ours, so I won’t show it. I had time to leisurely explore the surrounding area and choose a better place: the Internet didn’t really suit us, and the housing itself was not new.
First, some practical information for those who are planning to live in a beautiful place. As I already wrote in last year’s article, apartments and rooms in apartment buildings (condos) are mainly rented in the city; you can also find detached houses near the center, but this is a rare success. Most of the houses are mainly located on the outskirts or outside the city.
How to look for accommodation in Chiang Mai?
Option 1. Book an apartment from home in advance on the world's largest service for finding accommodation from hosts - Airbnb. By registering at , receive $25 toward your reservation.
Option 2. Arrive at the place, rent a guesthouse for a couple of days and explore the areas of interest. To do this, it is advisable to rent a motorbike or bicycle (you can’t get around everything on foot), and also have a local SIM card, which can be purchased at any 7-11 or Tesko Lotus store (using your passport). Then you just look at all the houses/condos you like and ask about the price and conditions and look at the apartments. Sometimes there is no one at the reception, so a local SIM card comes in handy - find out everything by phone.
Option 3. Find in advance a local real estate office that will help you rent a home. It’s interesting that they take the commission not from you, but from the property owner. To do this, Google the phrases “condo for rent chiang mai” or “house for rent chiang mai”. On the first page of the search there will be a dozen agencies with housing catalogs. Next you need to contact them.
Both last year and this time we looked for everything on our own. So you can watch it live, chat and ask for a discount :-)
A quick look at the most popular areas for condo rentals.
1. Huay Kaew Road area. Near the old town square, there is a shopping center and a large supermarket, many cafes and bars, both for locals with cheap prices and with European food.
2. Nimman area. Everything here is a little more expensive, there are a lot of “hipster” establishments, concept bars and places where advanced Thai youth hang out. Again, it’s not far from the chic Maya megamall.
3. Chet Yod area behind Highway Road. There are already more locals living here with corresponding prices, several large complexes of houses.
4. Suthep Road area near the university. A youth area, many condos for a low price, but most are either already occupied by Thai students or are rented out for six months to a year. There is a university with well-groomed grounds and an airport nearby, so planes will take off directly overhead, although you can hear them throughout the western part of the city.
About prices. You can rent a room in a condo in the areas listed above for 3,000 baht or even less, but do you need it? For 5,000 baht you can find quite decent options without a kitchen, for 7,000-8,000 baht you can rent a studio with a kitchen, for 10,000 you can rent entire apartments with all the equipment and a rooftop pool.
Prices for houses are approximately as follows: from 6,500 baht there are houses with two bedrooms, or for the same price there is a one-bedroom house, but newer and closer to the center. For 7000-8000 we saw quite luxurious options.
Review of our condo in Chiang Mai SB Residence
We managed to find a truly excellent option! One day, on my way to the market, I saw a new building standing in the back, so that it was not immediately visible from the road, and I decided to go in and ask about the price. To my surprise, prices started from 5,000 baht - exactly what you need!
The SB Residence condo is a brand new building and no one has lived in our room before. In our presence, they tore off the plastic from the refrigerator, and the water and electricity meters showed zeros.
The room is large, spacious and bright, as the windows are from ceiling to floor.
Our new home in Chiang Mai
From furniture: a large bed (without bed linen, we bought it ourselves later), a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe, a table, a table turning into a bedside table, a bedside table with a mirror, a chair (they brought a second one as soon as they asked), shelves above the table, a dark thick curtain on the window.
From technology: refrigerator, air conditioner, plasma about 80 cm with 96 channels (we don’t really watch it, maybe we’ll try connecting it to a laptop to watch movies).
Everything is absolutely new, no creaks, no play. Everything in the bathroom is shiny, there is hot water, the slopes are all well done. Particularly pleasing is the sink and cabinet below.
The view from the window is not very good
View from the roof of the SB Residence condo
Internet: paid Wi-Fi 300 baht per month for one password. But the speed is simply excellent - on average 12-15 MB for reception, and 5-8 MB for upload. Sometimes it’s more or less, for example I just took a screenshot.
Internet speed in our condo
There are paintings hanging in the hall, CCTV cameras, a new smooth elevator, and on the roof there are washing machines for 20-30 baht (also new, of course). Interestingly, the main entrance to the building is based on a fingerprint.
Parking below
Reception
Entrance to the building using a fingerprint. Elevator and stairs to the top
There is no pool, but there is a Hillside hotel not so far away, where it is available for 60 baht for a single visit. Or you can pay 1000 per month and go to the gym + pool as a bonus. I guess that's what I'll do.
Prices: SB Residence has two types of rooms: regular and deluxe. The deluxe is different in that in addition to the balcony with a huge window there is also a window; they turn out to be corner ones.
In general, the price depends on the floor, on the third for regular 5,500 baht per month, deluxe - 6,000 baht. But we managed to bargain for 5,000 for a regular room. The minimum contract is for 3 months, but I persuaded him to rent this room to us for two months - the guys are accommodating!
Electricity: 8 baht per kilowatt, water: 30 baht per unit. I think it will come out to around 700-800 baht per month. There is no bed linen, and they are required to rent a mattress cover for 650 baht one time. Plus another 300 baht for internet.
Overall it’s more expensive than our previous home, but for a completely new room and flying internet it’s just great!
What's nearby: The area is lively, there is a market with all kinds of vegetables and fruits nearby, a 3-minute walk away, and there is also a large food court with prices of 35-40 baht per dish. Read also ours. The Tops supermarket is about a 7-minute walk, and 7-11 stores are also nearby, as always.
The old town square is 5 minutes by bike. There are also many coffee shops, hairdressers, stalls with all kinds of snacks and pancakes, there is even a school - all the infrastructure!
Condo building in Chiang Mai
Of the minuses:
— there is a noisy road nearby, but between it and the building there is still a low building. But on the other side the sun shines almost all day, and here it’s cool even during the day.
- I had to buy additional bed linen for the room, a trash can, hangers, a clothes dryer - there was none of this. It costs very little at local dumpsters, so with a long stay this disadvantage is smoothed out.
— the view from the window leaves much to be desired, which can be improved by moving to higher and more expensive floors.
Contacts and address:
Phone: 092-186-8996
Address: The condo is located on Tanin Alley, between Hussadhisawee Road and Siri Wattana Market.
To summarize, we can say that we are very pleased, because we liked this area, and the price for a new condo in Chiang Mai is very low.
Having arrived in a new city for a fairly long period of time - from a month - one of the important tasks is renting housing. The search is greatly simplified if you know for sure that you are going to live here for 6 months or more; it is possible to agree on a shorter period - but it is difficult.
When we arrived in Chiang Mai in early July, naturally, the first thing we did was search on the Internet. One of the first search engines to produce an excellent overview of 30 condos from one very popular site about independent travel. But, in our opinion, the big drawback of the options considered is that they increasingly resemble hotel rooms (at best) rather than apartments in which you can live for quite a long time.
So, our requirements for living space:
- contract duration is up to 3 months with the possibility of further extension;
- the presence of a minimal kitchen (so that you can at least have breakfast);
- quiet place;
- availability of hot water;
- availability of the Internet or the ability to connect it;
- availability of bed linen (buying it in Thailand is not the cheapest thing, so it would be a pity to throw it away, and the size of your luggage does not allow you to carry it with you).
Friends advised us to contact the Buyinchiangmai company. There they found us a nice condominium option that met our requirements for reasonable money:
The cost of an annual contract is 5,500 THB/month, for 6 months it is already 6,000 THB/month, but since we had a 3-month contract, our rent was 6,500 THB/month.
Additional payment for water: 100 THB/month. and electricity at the state tariff of 4 THB/month. (Often, the management company’s tariff is used for calculations, which in Chiang Mai ranges from 6 to 12 THB per month). You can also use the local Internet, which is distributed via Wi-Fi (250 THB per month).
When concluding the contract, we were charged for the 1st month of living and a deposit for 2 months - that is, we need to be prepared to temporarily part with an amount equivalent to three months of rent.
We lived in the condo for 7 days more than what was originally in the contract, and this period was calculated for us based on the normal monthly price without any additional surcharges or inflated rates: that is, the monthly rental cost was divided by 30 and multiplied by the number of days lived.
It took us exactly 15 minutes to leave the condo. There were no problems with the return of the deposit. Also, when leaving, they should charge 500 THB for cleaning, but they charged us 300 since ours was clean :-)
The condominium is located between the Chiang Mai railway station and the Superhighway and consists of several buildings, in appearance they are more reminiscent of old Soviet Khrushchev buildings. On the outside everything is quite modest and shabby, but on the inside it is more than decent. You should also take into account that this condo does not have a swimming pool or gym, but there is an indoor tennis court and a Muay Thai school in the immediate vicinity.
P.S. By the way, we can recommend an excellent realtor
Our condo in Chiang Mai March 27th, 2016
After a holiday on Phangan, we thought about where to move next for the long term and our choice fell on Chiang Mai - a city in the north of Thailand, where there is neither sea nor beaches. This was not our first visit to Chiang Mai - three years ago we were there for about a month. We had mixed feelings from our last trip, but we thought it was difficult to understand the city in such a short time and gave it a second chance.
In this post we will show our condo in which we lived for six months in Chiang Mai.
Looking for a condo in Chiang Mai
Searching for housing in Chiang Mai is practically no different from searching in any other Thai city/island, for example, or. Only compared to the same searches three years ago, we had an advantage - we were looking for housing for six months, which is considered a long-term rental and significantly increases the number of available options. We rented an inexpensive hotel for a couple of nights, rented a bike and toured all the condos in the area we liked from our last trip - from Flora House and further north. The average price range was 11-15 thousand baht for a studio/single bedroom. After wandering around for a couple of days, we rented a one-bedroom apartment in a lonely condo on the outskirts of the city, although the rent was a little higher than planned. Interestingly, when we drove into the condo, the agent girl asked if we had checked into this condo before. We remembered that we actually moved into this condo three years ago, but then they told us that they don’t rent out on a monthly basis, and we moved on. It's amazing that it was the same girl and that she remembered us =)
In Chiang Mai we also gained a new experience - searching for housing together with an agent. In one of the condos we were given the phone number of a real estate agent, who offered to find a condo based on their database. She compiled a whole list of available options and the next day we drove around a dozen condos in her car. But we didn’t like any of the proposed options and we refused her services. (By the way, in Thailand you do not pay for the agent's services - the landlord does this, although this amount can often be included in the rental price.)
Our Convention Condominium
We rented a one bedroom apartment in a condo called Convention Condominium. The apartment is located on the 7th floor and overlooks Doi Suthep Mountain.
I won’t tell you the exact area, but the apartment is huge - an incredibly sized living room with a work space and a dining area, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. As on, we were surprised at the irrational use of space.
Living room with workplace
Evening place
General view of the living room - it’s noticeable how much space is empty
Workplace
Living room with dining table
The kitchen is narrow and elongated, but with many drawers and shelves. As is typical in a condo, the kitchen is equipped with a two-burner electric range. By the way, the apartment had all the kitchen utensils, from forks and spoons to a frying pan, so we didn’t have to buy anything ourselves.
Also, before checking in, we asked the hostess to bring various useful household appliances, such as a kettle, rice cooker and toaster. She brought not only what we asked for, but also a bunch of household items for cooking and cleaning, and at the end she gave us two packs of black rice as a gift. Such a sweet woman =)
Oblong kitchen
Bathroom
The bedroom is smaller than the living room, but also very spacious, and the huge windows, almost the entire wall, offer an excellent panorama of the mountain lying opposite and the highway going north.
Bedroom
Cozy place in the bedroom
The balcony also had a beautiful view of Doi Suthep Mountain. The sun was setting just behind the mountain and it was very beautiful in the evenings.
View of Doi Suthep Mountain from the balcony
The only big drawback was that the apartment faces a freeway with an endless stream of cars and due to the noise we rarely opened the windows or balcony. We took note that in the future we should not rent housing near the road.
View of the road from the balcony
View of the pool from the balcony
Almost no condo in Thailand is complete without a standard set of facilities, such as a swimming pool and a gym. In our condo, the pool is located on the second floor. The swimming pool is equipped with sun loungers and umbrellas, and there are changing rooms and showers.
Swimming pool on the second floor with sun loungers
There is a small gym on the same floor opposite the pool. It would be a stretch to call it a gym - just a couple of working cardio machines, one universal one and a bench. The situation is saved only by the weights, which were varied.
In general, while looking for housing in Chiang Mai, we did not see a single condo with a good gym, at least like in, let alone.
Miniature exercise machine
There were mailboxes on the first floor. As in Bangkok, all mail and parcels arrived directly at the condo (with the exception of the only case when the courier mixed up the apartment number and we had to go to the post office to identify the parcel ourselves) and they were handed out by a female lawyer. Unlike Bangkok, there were significantly fewer staff in this condo: a girl lawyer who resolved all issues regarding the condo and collected bills, a couple of service staff and a security guard. Well, she’s also a realtor, but she had a separate closet opposite the building.
Elevators and mailboxes on the ground floor
Hall on the first floor
There is parking next to the building specifically for bikes and bikes. There are, of course, the absolute majority of bikes here.
We also rented a bike while living in Chiang Mai, as usual it was a Honda Click, but a new model. We rented at Vanessa's motorbike office, which is directly opposite Flora House - the condo where we stayed last time. For a month the price was 2800 baht ($80).
Parking for bikes and bicycles
Condo on the road side
And as usual, finally, a panorama from the balcony:
Rent price
*Rate 1$ = 35.5 baht
Rent- 16,000 baht per month
The rent - just like in Bangkok - was transferred to the owners' account in a Thai bank.
Water- 350-400 baht per month (20 baht per unit)
The water bill was left in the mailboxes, and it was paid by a lawyer.
Electricity- 800-1500 baht per month (5 baht per unit)
The electricity bill came by mail, you can pay at any 7/11. Throughout the winter months in Ching Mai it was quite cool, so the air conditioner remained idle and electricity bills were half as much as usual.
Internet- 900 baht per month (for 15 Mb/s)
The Internet provider was 3BB Broadband (and we liked it much better than Bangkok's True Move). Just like in Bangkok, foreigners need to pay the entire amount for the Internet at once. When signing the contract, we paid for all 6 months - 5400 baht.
Total: ~19000 per month (~535$)
