After a nearly four-year absence from the residential market, the SET-listed Minor International Plc will launch two new luxury projects in Phuket and Bangkok's central business district (CBD) in the fourth quarter.
Robert Collins, senior vice-president for real estate and head of residential sales, said Minor was developing The Residences by Anantara Layan Phuket, a luxury villa project on Layan Beach worth 5 billion baht.
The project, featuring the highest prices ever recorded on the island, will comprise 15 pool villas with usable space of 1,313 to 2,317 square metres and sit next door to the Anantara Phuket Layan Resort & Spa.
The record high for a Phuket villa is US$10 million, but The Residences by Anantara Layan Phuket will top that, Mr Collins said.
The other project is a luxury condominium in the CBD, again with high-priced units but on a smaller scale than the Phuket project. Both will be freehold and under Anantara, a five-star hotel brand founded in 2001 by William Heinecke, Minor's chairman and chief executive.
"Using a hotel brand to promote a residential project is a new trend for luxury residences. With the hotel brand, which usually comes with hotel services, the luxury project can mark up the price by 30%," said Mr Collins, a former chief executive of the property consultancy Savills (Thailand) who joined Minor a year ago.
The company now has 10 high-end residences remaining for sale at three projects. They include three villas sized from 912 sq m and priced from 140 million baht at The Estates Samui. The hillside project with 14 villas was completed in 2008.
In Chiang Mai, Minor has two condo units sized 532 sq m and priced from 64-66 million baht and three villas sized 2,366 to 2,753 sq m and priced from 148 million baht at the Residences at Four Seasons resort.
In the third quarter, the company expects to sell the remaining two units at the St. Regis Residences project launched four years ago in Bangkok.
They are a 607-sq-m penthouse priced at 160 million baht and a 430-sq-m unit priced at 130 million baht under a leasehold contract expiring in 2041, out of 53 units that were completed last year.
On Ratchadamri Road, another two luxury condo projects still have units for sale including 34 freehold units at the 185 Rajadamri project by Raimon Land Plc. Completed in February, unit prices range from 32-86 million baht or 300,000 to 450,000 baht a sq m.
In addition, 237 units remain at the under-construction Magnolias Ratchadamri Boulevard by Magnolia Finest Corporation. Prices range from 15-67 million baht a unit under a 30-year leasehold contract.
MINT shares closed yesterday on the SET at 28.50 baht, up 75 satang, in trade worth 153 million baht.