In the third quarter of 2026 we recalculated our own database under a stricter method and found that we had been publishing an inflated number. Active supply on Phuket stands at 831 properties, not 3,487. Below we explain where the gap came from, why the flow of new supply fell 26 percent, and why the island average price consistently misleads buyers.
Seven numbers that define Q3 2026
- 831 properties were genuinely for sale as of 30 September 2026. These are active listings with no sold flag.
- THB 21,640,500 (about USD 618,000) is the median price of an active property.
- THB 34,390,278 (about USD 983,000) is the average. It sits 59 percent above the median, and that gap is the key to this entire report.
- 102 new properties entered the database during the quarter, against 137 in Q2. New supply flow fell 26 percent.
- 58 percent of active supply sits in a single district: Bang Tao and Laguna, 486 of 831 properties.
- 3.11 times is the price per square metre gap between Patong (THB 170,416) and Chalong (THB 54,878) on an island 50 kilometres long.
- 32 properties out of 831 are sold with a guaranteed yield promise. That is 4 percent of the market, not the standard practice advertising suggests.
How much is really for sale on Phuket: correcting our own error
In our Q2 2026 report we wrote: "3,367 active listings in the InDreams Phuket database." That phrasing was inaccurate, and we think it is right to explain publicly exactly how.
The figure was built on a published flag. But a published listing and a purchasable property are different things. A sold property stays in the catalogue: it keeps its history, photographs and floor plan, and it is needed for analytics and for showing clients comparable options. Technically it is published. In practice you cannot buy it.
Once we filtered the database by the sold flag, the picture changed sharply.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total listings in the sale section | 2,134 |
| Of which flagged as sold | 1,303 |
| Share of sold listings | 61 percent |
| Genuinely available to buy | 831 |
The gap is 2.6 times. This is not a technicality: the difference between 3,400 and 831 supports fundamentally different conclusions about the market. On the first number the island looks oversupplied and waiting for discounts makes sense. On the second, supply is tight and waiting means losing choice.
We found the problem while investigating why individual property pages were indexing poorly in search. Sold properties were entering the sitemap and consuming crawl budget. We fixed the technical side, and it then became clear that the same flaw was distorting our public analysis.
Throughout this report we present figures in two modes. Where a comparison with the previous quarter is needed, we use the earlier method (all published listings), because otherwise the comparison would be meaningless. Where we describe the market as it stands today, we use active supply only. Every table is labelled.
What changed over the quarter: like for like comparison
To keep the Q2 and Q3 comparison valid, both columns use the previous report's method: all published listings, no sold filter.
| Metric | Q2 2026 | Q3 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total listings in database | 3,367 | 3,487 | +3.6% |
| Sale section | 2,066 | 2,134 | +3.3% |
| Rental section | 1,301 | 1,353 | +4.0% |
| Average sale price, USD | 797,143 | 800,963 | +0.5% |
| Villas: listings | 1,104 | 1,136 | +2.9% |
| Villas: average price, USD | 1,070,000 | 1,080,708 | +1.0% |
| Apartments: listings | 893 | 925 | +3.6% |
| Apartments: average price, USD | 387,000 | 385,076 | -0.5% |
| Penthouses: average price, USD | 1,570,000 | 1,536,496 | -2.1% |
| Bang Tao and Laguna: properties | 1,760 | 1,834 | +4.2% |
| Three bedroom layouts | 953 | 970 | +1.8% |
| Band below USD 200K | 391 | 406 | +3.8% |
| Band above USD 1M | 473 | 494 | +4.4% |
The headline reads as moderate database growth of 3.6 percent against nearly static prices: plus 0.5 percent island wide. What matters more is that the growth is almost entirely on paper. It comes not from new supply but from the accumulation of sold listings that remain in the catalogue. The flow of genuinely new properties contracted over the same period.
Price stability in dollar terms deserves separate note. The average sale price moved half a percentage point in a quarter. For a market the media describes as booming, that is very calm. The growth being reported sits mainly in land and in specific premium locations, not in the typical property.
New supply flow fell 26 percent
This is the substantive news of the quarter. July, August and September added 102 new properties to the database. April, May and June added 137.
| Period | New properties |
|---|---|
| Q2 2026 | 137 |
| Q3 2026 | 102 |
| Change | -26 percent |
By type, Q3 new supply broke down as 60 villas, 41 apartments and 1 penthouse. A further 310 existing listings were updated or revised, and 34 properties were flagged sold.
One detail matters: 55 of the 102 new properties landed in Bang Tao and Laguna. That means 54 percent of new supply appeared in a district that already holds 58 percent of the market. The rest of the island barely moved: Rawai, Nai Yang, Nai Harn, Chalong, Karon and Mai Khao added no new properties at all during the quarter.
For buyers this has a concrete implication. If you are choosing between districts, your options outside Bang Tao are narrowing, and they are narrowing not because everything sold but because new projects are not going there. Developers are concentrating capital in an already crowded location.
Why the Phuket average price misleads
The average active property costs THB 34.4 million. The median costs THB 21.6 million. The average sits 59 percent higher.
The median is the price of the property exactly in the middle of the list: half cost more, half cost less. The average adds every price and divides by the count, so a handful of trophy villas at THB 200 to 300 million lifts it for everyone.
The practical takeaway: when an article or advertisement tells you "the average Phuket property costs around a million dollars," that is not a description of what a million dollars buys. The typical property on the island costs USD 618,000, and at that level it is already a villa or spacious apartment. The gap between those two numbers is budget buyers wrongly assume is mandatory.
| Price band | Properties | Share of active market |
|---|---|---|
| Below THB 5M | 71 | 8.5% |
| THB 5-10M | 164 | 19.7% |
| THB 10-20M | 173 | 20.8% |
| THB 20-50M | 278 | 33.5% |
| Above THB 50M | 145 | 17.4% |
More than a quarter of the active market, 235 properties, costs up to THB 10 million, roughly USD 286,000. The entry threshold to Phuket is considerably lower than the luxury narrative implies, though choice in that segment is limited: it is mostly one and two bedroom apartments rather than villas.
Districts: a 3.11 times gap in price per square metre
This table covers active supply only. Districts with at least 8 available properties are included.
| District | Active | New in Q3 | Median, THB | Median, USD | Per sqm, THB | Rentals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bang Tao and Laguna | 486 | 55 | 25,808,750 | 737,393 | 111,952 | 148 |
| Kamala | 61 | 8 | 45,784,900 | 1,308,140 | 143,170 | 2 |
| Layan | 55 | 7 | 22,800,000 | 651,429 | 153,693 | 4 |
| Rawai | 54 | 0 | 7,530,480 | 215,157 | 120,484 | 6 |
| Nai Yang | 31 | 0 | 7,177,000 | 205,057 | 124,219 | 0 |
| Nai Harn | 23 | 0 | 10,500,000 | 300,000 | 101,613 | 2 |
| Surin | 23 | 2 | 8,400,000 | 240,000 | 141,379 | 6 |
| Nai Thon | 21 | 8 | 12,800,000 | 365,714 | 108,856 | 6 |
| Chalong | 15 | 0 | 28,500,000 | 814,286 | 54,878 | 2 |
| Karon | 12 | 0 | 8,430,000 | 240,857 | 165,476 | 0 |
| Kata | 12 | 4 | 5,315,000 | 151,857 | 152,000 | 3 |
| Mai Khao | 11 | 0 | 22,800,000 | 651,429 | 82,593 | 3 |
| Patong | 8 | 4 | 23,982,500 | 685,214 | 170,416 | 0 |
The most revealing line is price per square metre. Patong costs THB 170,416 per metre, Chalong THB 54,878. A 3.11 times gap within an island you can cross by car in an hour.
The explanation is straightforward. In Patong the metre comes inside compact apartments in the zone of maximum tourist footfall, where land is expensive and development dense. In Chalong the metre comes inside a large villa with a plot, away from the beach line. The median property in Chalong is in fact higher: THB 28.5 million against THB 24 million. You are paying for floor area, not for location.
Kamala deserves separate attention. Its median of THB 45.8 million is the highest of any district, yet it holds only 2 active long term rentals. This is a district for owner occupation, not for letting. If you are considering Kamala as a rental investment, the rental market there barely exists.
Bang Tao and Laguna is the inverse: 148 active rental listings against 486 for sale. It is the only district on the island where the rental market runs deep enough to calculate yields from statistics rather than from promises.
Yields: apartments beat villas
Here we deliberately departed from the common calculation. The usual approach takes the average sale price in a district and divides it by the average rent in the same district. That does not work: the sale pool may be dominated by cheap apartments while the rental pool is dominated by expensive villas, so you are comparing different goods. We tested that method on our own data and it returned a 31.8 percent yield for Rawai, which is physically impossible.
The correct approach compares like for like pairs: same district, same property type, same bedroom count. Below are only the pairs with enough properties for a stable median.
| Property | Sample | Median price, THB | Monthly rent, THB | Gross | Net | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Villa 3 bed, Bang Tao | 112 / 30 | 29,000,000 | 200,000 | 8.3% | 5.9% | 17 years |
| Apartment 1 bed, Bang Tao | 70 / 25 | 7,200,000 | 50,000 | 8.3% | 5.9% | 17 years |
| Apartment 2 bed, Bang Tao | 85 / 19 | 13,500,000 | 75,000 | 6.7% | 4.5% | 22 years |
| Villa 4 bed, Bang Tao | 112 / 30 | 45,450,000 | 210,000 | 5.5% | 3.6% | 28 years |
| Apartment 3 bed, Bang Tao | 23 / 6 | 27,100,000 | 120,500 | 5.3% | 3.4% | 30 years |
| Villa 2 bed, Bang Tao | 14 / 13 | 18,250,000 | 60,000 | 3.9% | 2.2% | 45 years |
| Villa 5 bed, Bang Tao | 26 / 6 | 61,750,000 | 145,000 | 2.8% | 1.3% | 76 years |
Net yield is calculated as gross multiplied by 92 percent occupancy (long term letting, roughly 11 months a year), less a 10 percent management fee, less 1 percent of property value per year for common area charges, insurance and minor repairs. Rental income tax is excluded as it depends on the ownership structure. Under conservative assumptions (83 percent occupancy, 15 percent management fee, 1.5 percent costs) net yield falls by roughly 1.5 percentage points.
Two conclusions contradict the conventional view.
First, a one bedroom apartment yields the same as a three bedroom villa. Both deliver 8.3 percent gross. But the entry cost differs fourfold: THB 7.2 million against THB 29 million. If the goal is income rather than occupation, apartments are more efficient per unit of capital.
Second, the larger the property, the worse it rents. A five bedroom villa costs THB 61.75 million and earns THB 145,000 a month; a three bedroom villa costs THB 29 million and earns THB 200,000. The larger property costs twice as much and rents for less. The reason is that long term tenants for five bedrooms barely exist: such villas live on short term letting, where the economics differ entirely and occupancy is volatile. Buying a five bedroom villa for long term letting makes no sense.
The truth about guaranteed yields
In Phuket project marketing, a guaranteed yield promise looks like the market norm. Our data says otherwise.
| Developer promise | Active properties |
|---|---|
| 5 percent per year | 8 |
| 6 percent per year | 7 |
| 7 percent per year | 15 |
| 8 percent per year | 1 |
| 10 percent per year | 1 |
| Total | 32 of 831, or 4 percent of the market |
Now compare that with actual performance. One bedroom apartments in Bang Tao return 8.3 percent gross on real market rents. Against that benchmark, a "guaranteed 7 percent" is not an attractive offer.
The mechanism usually works like this: the developer fixes a payout for three to five years and takes the property into its own rental pool. You gain predictability but forfeit all income above the guaranteed level, along with control over how the property is managed. A guarantee does not raise your yield, it caps it in exchange for lower risk. That is a reasonable product for an investor who needs predictable cash flow, and a poor deal for anyone expecting market returns.
It is also worth checking what funds the guarantee. If it is priced into an inflated sale price, you are simply receiving your own money back.
Tourism falls, prices rise: unpacking the contradiction
Q3 produced an apparently contradictory picture.
- Phuket received 9,200,166 visitors in January to August 2026, down 1.76 percent year on year. Foreign arrivals fell 2.52 percent while Thai arrivals rose 0.46 percent. Revenue declined 0.99 percent to THB 356.21 billion. Figures presented by the Tourism Authority of Thailand at the Phuket provincial administration meeting on 28 September 2026.
- Phuket airport passenger arrivals fell 1.4 percent in the first half of 2026, to 4.39 million.
- Meanwhile the southern Thailand residential price index rose 5.59 percent year on year according to the Bank of Thailand. That is the strongest region in the country, against Bangkok at minus 0.18 percent over the same period. Over five years the south has added 20.1 percent.
Fewer tourists, yet prices rising faster than anywhere else in the country. The explanation is that Phuket housing prices have long been driven not by tourist flow but by two other forces.
The first is land. Buildable land in the western coastal districts is constrained by geography: a narrow strip between the mountains and the sea. Housing market research by Sopon Pornchokchai records Phuket land prices rising an average of 7.47 times over the observation period, around 10.7 percent annually, among the highest rates in Thailand. The cost base of any new project rises with land regardless of how many tourists arrived this season.
The second is a shift in buyer type. Russia remains Phuket's largest source market at 619,130 arrivals in January to July, ahead of China at 383,918 and India at 354,066. But the housing market is driven not by tourists but by people relocating long term or buying a second home. That demand is not tied to holiday length.
Our data supports the scarcity reading. If the market were oversupplied we would see new supply rising and pressure on prices. Instead new supply fell 26 percent while dollar prices held flat. That is the profile of a market constrained by land and construction costs, not one inflated by demand.
One risk deserves attention from landlords. C9 Hotelworks analysts note that the greater danger for Phuket is not falling arrival numbers but shortening average length of stay and a rotation of the guest mix toward lower spending markets. Competition from Vietnamese resorts, Phu Quoc in particular, is intensifying on entry level pricing. For short term rentals this means pressure on low season occupancy.
Did our Q2 forecast hold up
Our Q2 report made three specific predictions for Q3. We check them honestly, including what missed.
| Q2 forecast | Q3 actual | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Inventory drifts up to 3,600-3,800 listings | 3,487, up 120 over the quarter | Missed |
| Average sale prices hold flat | THB 28.03M against 27.9M, up 0.5 percent | Correct |
| Gross yields stabilise in a 5-7 percent corridor | Villa 6.3 percent, apartment 8.0 percent, townhouse 4.3 percent | Partly |
| Kamala continues drifting up toward USD 1.6M | Kamala average USD 1.631M | Correct |
| Dispersion between districts widens | Per metre gap widened to 3.11 times | Correct |
The main error was the direction of supply. We expected inventory to keep expanding as development pipelines completed, and framed this as a "moderately bearish signal for owners." The opposite happened: new supply contracted by a quarter. Our advice to owners of generic units in Patong and Karon, that they should expect to soften price expectations by 5 to 8 percent, was premature.
The yield forecast held only partly. The 5 to 7 percent corridor was right for villas, but apartments came in above it at 8 percent, because their prices eased slightly over the quarter while rents held.
Q4 2026 forecast with testable criteria
We state these so the next report can say plainly whether each held.
One. New supply flow stays below 130 properties for the quarter. Basis: the Bang Tao delivery cycle is winding down and we see no major new starts in other districts in our deal flow. Test: properties added between 1 October and 31 December.
Two. Bang Tao and Laguna concentration exceeds 58 percent of active supply. Basis: 54 percent of Q3 new supply landed there while six districts added nothing. Test: district share of active supply on 31 December.
Three. Median active property price stays within THB 20-23 million. Basis: average prices have not moved for two quarters, and tight supply is offset by soft tourism. Test: median across active properties on 31 December.
Four. The per square metre gap between the most and least expensive district exceeds 3.2 times. Basis: widening dispersion is now confirmed for a third consecutive quarter.
High season opens in November and typically lifts transaction activity, but it has little effect on supply: decisions to launch new projects are taken a year in advance.
Methodology
The internal data source is the InDreams Phuket catalogue as of 30 September 2026. We operate on the island with an office in Bang Tao on Lagoon Road, and this data reflects our own inventory and deal flow rather than the aggregate market.
Key methodological decisions:
- Active supply means published sale listings with no sold flag and a stated price. This is the sample used wherever we describe current market conditions.
- Quarter on quarter comparison uses the previous report's method (all published listings), without which the trend would not be comparable. Those tables are labelled.
- Median rather than average describes the typical property. The average is shown alongside to expose the skew.
- Yields are calculated only on like for like pairs: same district, same type, same bedroom count, with a minimum of 14 properties for sale and 6 for rent. Pairs with smaller samples were excluded, because a median built on three or four properties is unstable and produces unreliable results.
- Exchange rate is taken at THB 35 to the dollar.
- External data is attributed: Tourism Authority of Thailand, Bank of Thailand, Airports of Thailand, CBRE, C9 Hotelworks.
We publish the methodology in detail because this report required revising one of our own previous figures. Readers should be able to check how we calculate, and to notice if we get it wrong again.
Frequently asked questions
How many properties are actually for sale on Phuket right now?
Our catalogue held 831 active sale listings as of 30 September 2026. These carry no sold flag and have a stated price. The full catalogue contains 3,487 records, but 1,303 are already sold and retained for history and analysis.
What does a typical property cost?
The median active property costs THB 21,640,500, about USD 618,000. The average is THB 34.4 million, about USD 983,000, inflated by trophy villas. Budget against the median.
Which yields better, a villa or an apartment?
On our data a one bedroom apartment in Bang Tao returns 8.3 percent gross at THB 7.2 million, the same as a three bedroom villa at THB 29 million. Per unit of capital the apartment is four times more efficient. Villas make sense where owner occupation or land value appreciation matters.
Is a guaranteed yield property worth buying?
These are 4 percent of the market, just 32 properties. A guaranteed 7 percent does not beat the actual 8.3 percent that quality apartments produce, while capping your upside and removing control of the asset. It suits buyers who need predictable cash flow. Always check whether the guarantee is funded by an inflated sale price.
Which district should I choose for rental income?
Bang Tao and Laguna is the only district with a genuinely deep rental market: 148 active rental listings. Kamala has the highest median price but only 2 active long term rentals, making it an owner occupier district. Karon, Nai Yang and Patong had no active long term rentals in our database at the cut off date.
Why is Patong more expensive per metre than Chalong while its properties cost less?
Patong sells compact apartments in a zone of dense development and high land cost: THB 170,416 per metre. Chalong sells large villas with plots away from the beach: THB 54,878 per metre with a higher median property price. You pay either for location or for floor area.
Will prices fall?
Our data does not suggest so. Average prices have been flat for two consecutive quarters while new supply contracted 26 percent. A price decline requires excess supply, and there is none. The southern Thailand price index is meanwhile rising 5.59 percent year on year according to the Bank of Thailand.
What to do with this data
If you are buying to live, budget against the median rather than the average, and look beyond Bang Tao: six districts added no new properties this quarter, which means choice there is shrinking.
If you are buying to let, calculate yields on comparable properties within a specific district, and check whether a rental market exists there at all. An expensive district does not imply high rents.
Current listings are in our Phuket property for sale section, with villas and apartments listed separately. To assess rental potential, see houses for rent and apartments for rent.
Our next report is due in early January 2027, with a verdict on the four forecasts set out above.
