What should I consider before buying a hostel near BTS Nana in Bangkok?

How long is the lease?

Is there any rental increases in the lease or any terms about increases for lease renewal?

Do you have in the lease the first right of refusal when renewing?

Are they asking for any key money?

Leasing is a big sticking point with running a business.

Often they’ll give you just a 3 year with the option to renew and leave it open ended.

Then every 3 years they Jack up the rent on you and if you were profitable all of a sudden you’re not anymore or a big chunk of it is gone to the rent increase, to say nothing of having to pay key money again (which they could also decide to raise on you).

Get the longest lease you can. All the successful Thai owners of bars, gogos, restaurants and hotels I know won’t settle for anything less than 9 years, many push hard for 10-15 with any rent increases spelled out in advance.

Last thing you want is to rent out a place, spend a bunch of time and money fixing it up and getting it profitable just to have the landlord show up a year later and tell you that because you made it so much nicer, he just has to charge you more rent.

They will always find an excuse to raise the rent on you.

I’ve seen Thai and especially Chinese building owners who would rather let a property sit empty for years than keep a paying tenant who isn’t paying what they delusionally think their property is worth.

Also, a lot of property owners are doing temporary Covid pricing and fully expect to raise rates significantly over the next couple of years.

So make sure you’ve got a good, long term rent fixed in.

Don’t get ripped off by key money, it’s basically just a way to make the rent seem lower when it’s not while also getting money from you now because they think it’s likely your business will fail and you’ll walk away leaving them with only your deposit to keep while they wait for who knows how long to find a new tenant.

There will always be negative comments. Ignore them

Do your due diligence, check the accounts are real and not fake figures, take your time, ask lots of questions. You can pm if you have any questions

And just go for it. I wish you success. If you are honest, good with people and most importantly have a good marketing team behind you and you will make money

Just delete and block the negative comments they are not important

If you can have it pop up on googles first page , you’ll have plenty of customers!

even pre-pandemic, hostels were over supplied in Bangkok, mostly because the barriers to entry are non-existent, so you will always be in a race to the bottom on price - very difficult to make decent profit unless it has +100 beds or you have mutiple properties in the same area (to achieve economies of scale) and/or you have a big pool that hipster-backpackers will pay a premium for.

however, some people do make good money by selling hostels (i.e. rent a townhouse, fill it with bunk beds, get it listed on the booking sites, and then sell it to a tourist/FOTB expat as a "hostel") so if you have good sales skills, can get the place for free, and can negotiate a rent holiday with the landlord for 6-12 months until tourists come back in any serious numbers, that might work.

By chance, is it top of soi 10?

I did what you want to do back in 1984. BTW, do you have work permit? I did not so my Thai partners did all the work. Personally I think it's a very, very hard business to make money at but it might help if you have a work permit and you are there day in and day out. The cow grows fatter under the farmer's eye. If you are truly diligent and a hard and smart worker then no telling what might happen. Very often your original path will veer into something else. It's my impression that people who invest in startups really invest in the people behind the startup. Were I you I'd look into how hostels make money and how much they make and how they really make it. Be aware of the ceiling. I wonder if just one hostel would do more than buying you a manager's wage. But then again it could be a platform for you to do other things. When I did it, it was really for fun. Ah .. I see you asked for people who did it in the area, I did not. I did it in Chiang Mai.

I don’t understand why people are laughing, mocking, or being sarcastic instead of providing valuable advise, when they can just scroll and move along if they don’t find it a good deal. 🙃

I say, maybe add to your research is history of the hotel’s sales pre-pandemic, see if it was making good money before—to add as a factor if it’s worth buying/renting. If this is your first time managing something like this, early on maybe find an expert to help you be informed of the logistics, especially staffing. So you can compute how much money you will need to keep it running and if the place can sustain that. 😊

Great oportunity !!🤣🤣🤣👍👍