PACE TURNS FROM INNER CITY TO HUA HIN

       Property firm Pace Development is planning to launch a new residential project in Hua Hin worth between Bt3 billion and Bt4 billion next year-if its present large project, MahaNkhon, on Narathiwat Road, comes close to beingg 50-per-cent presold before the middle of next year.
       CEO Sorapoj Techakraisri said his company received positive market feedback after unveiling plans for the giant Bt18-billion MahaNakhon project earlier this year. It involves a boutique hotel, luxury residences and retail space.
       Rather than developing the project in phases, presaler for the entire project. The companyis building a Bt200-million showroom to provide finished sample rooms, so that customrs cna have a precise feel for what they can expect from the project.
       Sorapoj said the company expected to book 15 per cent of the project after opening presales and believed presales would reach 50 per cent of the project's value by the middle of next year.
       When this target is reached, the company will launch a new project's in Hua Hin.
       Sorapoj said the company's business policy was investing project by project. It launched Saladaeng Residences, with a market value of Bt2.4 billion, last year. This project succeeded in attracting presales amounting to half of its value, so Pace Development decided to go ahead with MahaNakhon.
       It has set up a joint venture with Israel's largest real-estate developer, Industrial Buildings, to develop the Bt18-billion MahaNakhon project on a longlease land plot on Narathiwat Road, next to Chong Nonsi Skytrain Station.
       The project is separated into three parts, with a different firm managing each part. They are Pace Project I, involving the construction of a high-end boutique hotel called The Edition Bangkok. It will have 150 rooms.
       Pace Project II will cover a 200-unit luxury residential development, while Pace Projects III will develop retail space covering 10,000 square metres.
       When half of the MahaNakhon project is prsold, that will be a green light for the company's next project, in Hua Hin. It is now collecting undeveloped land for next year's rsidential project, with a budget between Bt500 million and Bt1 billion.
       Sorapoj said the next project would focus on the luxury market, offering residences priced above Bt10 million.
       In its planning for both Saladaeng Residences and MahaNakhon, Pace Development targeted local buyers rather than foreigners, because it believed the lifestyle behaviour of local home-buyers had changed to condominium living.
       "We were wrong," Sorapoj said. "When home-buyers have more than Bt10 million to buy a rsidence, they look for a detached house at a location somewhere between the innercity and the suburbs," he said.
       For example, local customers targeted to buy units at MahaNakhon for Bt34 million were more likely to buy a single detached house on Ratchapruek Road. As a result, most of its customers would be foreign buyers, he said.
       The MahaNakhon project's website has been visited by 700 Internet users interested in buying a residence, about 60 per cent of them local buyers and most of those asking about homes costing less than Bt30 million. the remaining 40 per cent are foreign buyers who want residences costing more than Bt30 million.
       Foreign buyers who now have purchasing power come from Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia and the United Kingdom.
       "If the global economyy recovers, we believe sales from our residential projects will achieve our targets next year,' Sorapoj said.