Supalai eyes Hat Yai revival
HAT YAI: SET-listed developer Supalai Plc (SPALI) expects the recovering tourism industry will help to revitalise this southern district’s housing market this year.
Chief executive Prateep Tangmatitham said the housing market in Hat Yai had slowed since rubber prices sharply dropped in recent years.
“We expect the tourism market will pick up after it was sluggish last year due to violence in the deep South.”
Last year, Supalai recorded sales of only 10 units a month at one of its new condo projects in Hat Yai.
In 2012, when rubber prices were strong, the company sold out one project in only three hours.
Hat Yai was once one of the company’s five best-performing locations, with housing sales topping 1.5 billion baht in 2012.
The developer’s sales fell to 800 million baht in 2013 and 400 million last year, in line with the decline in average rubber prices from 130 baht a kilogramme in 2012 to 100 baht in 2013 and 50 baht last year.
In a bid to reach this year’s sales target of 900 million baht, Supalai will launch two new projects with unit prices lowered to 3 million baht from 4 million last year to match homebuyers’ purchasing power.
The developer will launch two new lowrise projects worth a combined 800 million baht in Hat Yai’s tambon Baan Phru and tambon Khuan Lang, where it will develop single houses and duplex houses with unit prices starting from 3 million baht.
In Hat Yai, Supalai has a joint venture with investors who were Mr Prateep’s colleagues many years ago at Haadyai Nakharin Co, in which Supalai holds a 50% stake.
The subsidiary was the first company Mr Prateep invested in before founding Supalai a year later.
In the past 26 years, Haadyai Nakharin has developed more than 10 housing projects worth more than 20 billion baht. It now has six projects with available units.
SPALI shares closed yesterday on the SET at 21.70 baht, up 50 satang, in trade worth 325 million baht.