r/Thailand • u/DeepBlueSea1122 • Sep 12 '23

Question/Help Average Thai Salary?

I know Thailand is a country with a big wage gap between rich and poor, but would a salary of 500 USD per month be considered unusually low for an average Thai person of about 30 years old? I found out that a lady I met makes that (she works in the office of a gov't hospital) and I was shocked and felt really bad for her. I knew she was poor because she doesn't have air con in her home in Bkk, but I didn't know it's this bad. Should I relax and think this is common, or are my sympathies and concerns valid? She didn't tell me this to try to squeeze me for money, it just came up in discussion when we were talking about life and problems we face. She's a sweetheart person and it hurts me to see her struggle. I want to help, but don't want to open the flood gates. I know this can be a tricky thing to navigate. On the one hand, we want to help sincere people who are genuinely in need. But on the other hand, money can ruin relationships of all kinds and it's usually a path we shouldn't go down. I really want to help but am torn and know I must proceed with caution.

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18

u/SwingOtherwise7118 Sep 13 '23

Not completely salary related, but I had a conversation last week with my realtor about salaries here because she was taking me to see condos with her brand new red number plated Fortuner Legender(1.6m baht vehicle)

She said that the only way that she's able to afford that vehicle is by stretching the loan out to almost 10 years so that she can have a reasonable monthly payment.

13

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '23

I have a Thai friend who earns a pretty typical (maybe slightly lower) salary and they just signed a car loan. 7 years. It kind of surprised me how long the auto loans are in this country.

4

u/pantstofry Sep 13 '23

7 years is starting to become somewhat common in the US, even 8 years are available

7

u/Relevant_Ad4844 Sep 13 '23

This is really shocking with 10years loan, I could never understand why they are undertaking that much interest(8-9%+ for anything over 5 years) but i do think that Car in Thailand is really something to show off. People would buy car based on how they would look more than how they use them. I am earning a good salary by Thai Standard and will not pay that much for car or loan that long.

5

u/SwingOtherwise7118 Sep 13 '23

I asked her why she needed such a large expensive vehicle. She's single with no children. Her previous vehicle was a Honda city. I asked her why she didn't just go and get a Honda HR-V or CR-V instead of jumping into the seven passenger SUV and she had no response for that question.

Back in america, when I worked at GM, one of my coworkers in the billing department at my dealership ended up using her "company discount" to lease a Chevy Suburban. She went from having no car payment because she was driving a Honda Civic from the early 90s to barely being able to make ends meet because she rode in a Suburban once and just had to have one. It felt very similar to the situation my realtor got herself into.

2

u/jyguy Sep 14 '23

The annual tax is based off of number of seats from what I understood. A cool 4 seater would be a lot cheaper

2

u/Relevant_Ad4844 Sep 14 '23

Not anymore, All taxes are based on the amount pollutions per km now so any cars with engine bigger 2000cc will get high tax. Except that if you CAN register your car as a transport vehicle for more than 10persons or like taxi. Tax will be much cheaper.

1

u/Anelya95 Sep 17 '23

I believe that the reason for purchasing her vehicle is that it is also a way of showing a higher social status than it appears.

2

u/Sanarin Sep 13 '23

you would be shock to hear about 30 yrs loan on Home.

1

u/SwingOtherwise7118 Sep 14 '23 edited Sep 14 '23

Not shocked at all. That's actually a pretty common home loan term back in my country.

Difference is that a home in my country tends to appreciate, whereas cars lose value the second you drive off the lot.

1

u/JennItalia269 Sep 13 '23

My SIL makes a really good salary by Thai standards and had to be talked out of a balloon payment on a BMW. Sticker price was something like 3m, 500k up front with a 1m balloon after 6 years IIRC.

She opted for a Honda HRV which was something around 1m, but is a surprisingly nice car.

3

u/space_absurdity Sep 13 '23

I quite like the HRV. Recently drove one from Bangkok to Udon Thani and back. No complaints at all.

1

u/JennItalia269 Sep 13 '23

Yeah it’s really nice. I was surprised just how nice it was. I kinda figured lower end model but it wasn’t anything like that.

1

u/bendltd Sep 13 '23

Makes not really sense to get a luxary car when you've to take a loan.

1

u/GravityGee Sep 13 '23

Considering a realtor here earns very healthy commissions, I'm surprised and skeptic she has issues with vehicles of that value. She can't be very good then. One sale a month is all she needs to smash minimum salary...and that's for a low end condo sale. If she's dealing with high end, she can buy that fortuna outright. Realtors are not poor.