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Hi, thanks for your comment. Best regards Mathias

Have had a break in construction but now it's time to finish some of the exterior and start buying furniture for the house. The idea is that we will be down November to January this year so I want to prepare as much as possible before the whole family comes down. There will be some films until the end of July, then there will probably be a break until November. Thank you so much for watching. Best regards Mathias

Hi Tomasz, thanks for your comment. Best regards Mathias

Hi. Not 100% sure but I think the cost is around 1,2 miljon baht. The start was 900 t baht but then they did some changes. Best regards Mathias

Hi. There were a few changes during construction, moving a wall, building an outdoor kitchen and moving a bathroom so the layout became a bit unstructured Best regards Mathias

Hi. Sorry for late answer. The wall is 332 meter long and cost 2 500 baht per meter. I am a little dissatisfied with the bottom work where they simplified the work which leads to us getting holes under the wall. I would recommend watching the video below and asking him some questions about price so you get some different solutions. th-cam.com/video/oumcKAxoBgA/w-d-xo.html Best regards Mathias

Hi Vikky. Hope all is well. Thank you for your comment. The most important thing depends a little on where in the process you are. Initially, it is important that you arrive at what your house should look like. After that, I recommend that you contact an architect, not necessarily the same one who builds the house. This is so that you get a correct drawing according to Thai measurements. We have built a few different buildings on the land. In the case of the house you comment on, it was a contractor who built everything and then the cost will be slightly higher. We built our house by hiring labor and bringing in expertise that supervised the construction. We bought the material ourselves. That solution means a little more monitoring, which we had by getting information every day about what was done and pictures of it. The best thing for that solution is probably that you are on site, but you probably need to be if you bring in a contractor. If you are thinking about details that are important, I would initially say that the foundation of the house is important, now afterwards I would also add to that that it is important to check the plumber as it is important that the water pipes are routed correctly and that there are no leaks. You are welcome to specify in a little more detail what you mean by the most important thing and I will try to explain what we have arrived at. Best regards Mathias

Hi Andrew Thank you for your answer. Last rainy season a few roof tiles flew off but otherwise the house held up well so I hope it will withstand quite severe weather but we'll see in a few years. Best regards Mathias

Hi machael. Thanks for your answer. Hope it go well with your houseproject. Best regards Mathias

Hi. Thanks for your comment. Best regards Mathias

Hi. Thank you for your comment. Some people like it and some people want something else. Best regards Mathias

Hi Tomasz Thank you for your comment. Right now everything is standing still in Thailand, we won't build anything until a year from now when we come down to Thailand and live there. We will then decorate our house, complete the basketball court, adjust the front of our house a bit, lay a road between the houses, put up a gate and fence by the wall, put up planter boxes, etc. We will see how much we manage to do during the period that we will be there, but then we will also start filming again. Best regards Mathias

@@mathiasgrahn4440 Thank You I wish You all the best 😎👍

Hej. För detta hus var det avtalade delbetalningar, kommer inte riktigt ihåg hur dessa såg ut då det var min frus syster och hennes man som byggde huset. Det tog runt 6 månader att bygga huset. Ett stort problem var att arbetsledaren/byggaren nästan aldrig var på plats så arbetslaget som gjorde så gott de kunde fick styra allt. Vissa delar kanske inte blev enligt standard i grunden. En syster som bor i Chiang Mai och byggt hus kom senare till bygget och konstaterade brister framförallt i takkonstruktionen som byggaren fick korrigera, det var för svagt stål i strukturen. Det gäller att han någon som är insatt och kan kontrollera bygget så det blir rätt gjort. Det är nog det viktigaste skulle jag säga. Hoppas detta besvarar dina frågor, dyker det upp något är det bara att säga till. Mvh Mathias

Hej. Kom på en sak som är otroligt viktig att tänka på innan man sätter igång och bygga sitt hus, det påverkar slutprodukten. Jag ser många som bygger hus i Thailand och som inte tänker på hur de ska möblera husen när de är klara. När huset är klart blir möbleringen ganska konstig så tänk på vart man placerar fönster, dörrar mm. Jag ser många filmer där man inte tänkt på detta inledningsvis och då blir det lite halvdana lösningar i slutet. Planera alltid en hel vägg i varje rum som man kan nyttja, hur högt fönstret ska vara om man t ex ska ha ett skrivbord framför mm. Vilket håll dörrarna ska öppnas så det finns utrymme för dem. Mvh Mathias

Tack för svaren och Mathias! väldigt bra information att ha i tankarna.

Hi. Thanks for you comment Best regards Mathias

Hi. Thanks for your comment. Best regards Mathias

Hi. We paid around 13 tbaht per sqm. It´s 660 sqm best regards Mathias

Hi. Thanks for your comment. Best regards Mathias

Hi John. We bought about 4 ray for 3.2 million baht, the land is in the northern parts of Chiang Mai. The house I think cost around 1.2 million baht and is around 120 square meters. Best regards Mathias

Hi. Thanks for you comment. Maybe so, but for our situation and how we planned the house, it is the right number of walls :-) Best regards Mathias

Hi Chad. Thanks so much. We initially worked with the architect Top, see the link below: www.topdesignandbuild.com/home He was very good to work with when it comes to planning the house. Before we started, we sat and drew the house in floorplaner.com to have an idea of what we wanted. When we were going to build, we took a quote from Top, but he had a rather heavy markup on both materials and labor, so my wife's sister, who lives in Chiang Mai and has built 3 houses, gathers work teams for each part. It requires more from us as the client, but you save around 20%, which for us corresponded to around 1,500,000 baht. If you are in Doi Saket I can recommend Paul at Doi Saket Properties, same price range as Mr Top and very good in the whole process, at least that's the impression I got from him. www.doisaketproperties.com/ If you want the contact details for my wife's sister, just let me know as she has all the other contact details for the builders but her English is limited, it works in simpler contexts but I would probably recommend that you have someone Thai to talk to her in such a case . Hope this helps a little. Best regards Mathias

Hi Gary. Berra and Moe house was if I remember right around 1,2 miljon baht. From start it would be 900 000 baht but then they added outdoor kitchen and carport and some other things. Best regards Mathias

Hi Rick. In Chiang Mai Best regards Mathias

thanks !@@mathiasgrahn4440

Hi. Thanks for your comment It´s around 660 sqm and around 13 k per sqm. Best regards Mathias

Hi Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Tomasz Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi John It will be a playground where you can play basketball, kick a little football, floorball goals, swing, etc. Something that makes you get out and move a little and not just sit still is the thought. Best regards Mathias

@@mathiasgrahn4440 Getting the young out and away from their smart phones is an impossible job nowadays.

Hi Rub. Thanks for your comment. Last building for a while. Small details left in house and land. Best regards mathias

Hi Rub. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi tomasz. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Rub. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi. Yes, we have bought an machine for heating and cooling, we decided not to finish the pool now as we will only be moving down in a year and then it is unnecessary to incur costs to clean the pool every day for a year. We will have minerals in the water so it won't be salt water if I understood correctly. Best regards Mathias

Hi. Thank you very much for your comment. Very grateful that you appreciate the content, hope it can help if someone is thinking of building a house. There are certainly things that could have been done differently and better. We've had some problems that resulted in extra costs, but I think that's how it is with most buildings in Thailand. On the whole, we've been lucky with the ones we've brought in to build. We won't start using the house until a year from now, then we will certainly adjust some, but overall I think we will be satisfied. Best regards Mathias

@@mathiasgrahn4440 It would be great if you do a follow up video some time regarding the things you would avoid, may help us when its time to build our own house :)

@@firewight1944 I've been thinking about making such a summary but it's hard to get it together so I think I'll write what I noted during this trip in point form. 1. Prepare yourself for how you want your house to look, how many rooms, floors, toilets, how they are distributed over the surface, reduce dead space such as corridors to a minimum. 2. Keep in mind that the pricing for house construction is usually calculated in baht per square meter and then space that is outside such as a terrace is also included in the same price even though the construction cost for such space is much less. It could be an advantage to divide the building into 2 parts. 3. There is a lot of information about the standard (Mattatan) available on TH-cam. Please spend some time on such information so you are prepared. 4. Find an architect who can communicate in English as well, it makes it quite a lot easier. Feel free to check that they have references, contact them so that you get information on whether what is shown corresponds to reality. 5. Write a clear contract with the architect so you know which payment plan and what will be included in the work with applications at Tessaban etc. It is important not to look for the cheapest solution here, I explain it as it is the architect who draws the map, if it is substandard then there is a risk that the house construction will be worse. Here they often work with an estimated price for the construction and then they take a percentage of the estimated price. Many times it is between 3-5%, but here you can probably work the percentage down somewhat, but this is not where you save money. You will certainly change something during the drawing, so make sure to include free changes in the contract text up to a certain stage. 6. Spend a lot of time with the architect, make sure to have meetings and during the meetings you will arrive at what needs to be done for the next meeting so that there will be structure to the work between the various reconciliations. 7. Ensure that all building permit applications are completed before the final payment to the architect. In the next part I write about the construction.

@@firewight1944 The construction: 1. Decide whether you will have a turnkey contract or whether you will purchase materials yourself and bring in labor. It is about 30% lower cost if you manage it yourself, may sound strange as the turnkey contract usually has a markup of 10-15% but it is the prices in the BOQ that usually have air and then 10-15% is added for materials, labor and air. If you are going to build yourself, it may be good to hire a supervisor who can check the various construction parts. Important to have a good agreement here, we missed a bit on this part and have not received a good delivery even though it has worked completely. It is usually easy to agree in the beginning and trust each other, but then if it is not delivered in full, it is difficult to point to the agreement if the commitments of each party are not clearly stated. 2. Now we have bought materials ourselves and brought in work teams, so I can only inform about what we noticed in this process. I would recommend that you draw up a good agreement template that you use with all work teams so that you have good documentation. It has been a bit mixed on this front in our work. If you are going to use a general contractor, I strongly recommend that you check the BOQ and the prices of major material costs such as steel on the website www.onestockhome.com to verify the prices you were given. Also go in and check, for example, this page tradingeconomics.com/commodity/steel to get an idea of the price development. If you have other currency, it might be good to check the exchange rates and try to set a benchmark for a good exchange rate that you have budgeted for so you know when to exchange money to THB. Another part is the labor costs in BOQ, which are usually well measured with a general contractor. For example, you can hire a tiler, it is not unusual for them to charge 280 baht per square meter in a BOQ, if you bring in the labor yourself, you get a good tiler who charges 140 baht per square meter. 3. If labor is to be brought in, you need to be on the ground every day or have friends or relatives who are there and check the work, order goods, etc. so that there is no stoppage in the construction. 4. It is important that you have control over the work with the foundation so that it is done according to the standard and that it does not become a fraudulent construction. 5. I worked with 3 parts when we decided work team, quality, total responsibility and price. By total responsibility, I mean that if someone builds the wall, the wall, cements the wall and then another work team comes and paints, it is difficult to have someone responsible for the whole if something goes wrong and then it is easy to point the finger at each other. 6. Things will go wrong in the construction, the important thing is that you have open communication so that when something comes up, it is then immediately presented so you can decide whether it should be fixed so that it follows the drawing or if you want to handle it in some other way that does not affect the cost. If there is a mistake in the construction, it is usually you who will have to pay extra for it to be fixed, even if the work team did not follow the drawing. There is a risk that you try to correct errors without telling them, and then an extra cost comes up that you didn't count on. I have noticed during the trip that many people find it difficult to say that something has gone wrong, it seems to be something that is bad to do wrong. I had a big meeting with supervisors, builders and others on the ground when something went wrong in our construction. I tried to get them to understand that all people do, I said I make mistakes every day, ask my wife but it didn't seem like the information was really getting through, instead they try to point the finger at someone else. I think I have included what I perceive to be most important before and during a construction project. I had no knowledge before we started the construction and I don't have a lot of knowledge in the context, but if there is something you are thinking about, just let me know.

@@mathiasgrahn4440 Awesome, thank you very much for such a comprehensive list of things to watch out for, it is very much appreciated! Cheers!

Hi Paul. The idea is that we will put a carpet in the cinema room, also thinking of putting a training mat in the gym. Best regards Mathias

@@mathiasgrahn4440 what's the overall size and how much per square meter for the construction?

@@PaulRLight Hi Paul. The total size is around 660 sqm, around 12´ per sqm i think. Best regards, Mathias

12,000 THB per square meter? I'm guessing that doesn't include the pool.

​@@PaulRLight Calculated a bit wrong, 13.8' per sqm including the pool. Forgot to count the pool, windows and doors. Best regards Mathias

Hi Tomasz Thanks for your comment and for always leave a comment Best regards Mathias

@@mathiasgrahn4440 👍🙏😎

@@tomaszs9458 Thanks for your comment, best regards, Mathias

Hi. Thank you for your comment. Best regards Mathias

Hi Rub. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Rub. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Tomasz Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Rub. Thanks for your comment. Yes, it will be fun to play basket when when down in Thailand. Best regards Mathias

Hi Rub Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Tomasz Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi June. Thank you very much for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Rub. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi LW. I'm not very good at this so I'm not sure what your concern is. You are welcome to write what the risk is so I can see if they can arrange for it before they are done. They have 2 more doors to put up. Best regards Mathias

Hi Tomasz. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Tomasz. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias

Hi Rub. Thanks for your comment Best regards Mathias