Retiring in Phuket: How to Choose and Buy a Home

This guide is for someone who intends to live in Phuket for months at a time, or for good, and wants a home for that life rather than a unit to let out. The questions are different from an investor's: how many stairs, how far to a supermarket, who looks after the pool when you are away, whether there is a lift, and what the running costs are.

It does not cover retirement visas, tax residency, pensions, insurance or medical care; take those to an immigration lawyer, a tax adviser and your insurer. Planetarium Real Estate is a property agency, not a law firm, visa agency, tax adviser or healthcare provider. What follows is what we can speak to: the homes, the areas, and what they cost in our current catalogue. The ground rules for foreign buyers — what you can own, the purchase steps and the fee types — are in our guide to buying property in Phuket as a foreigner.

Most property marketing in Phuket is written for a buyer who visits a few weeks a year and lets the unit out the rest of the time: a rental pool, a resort brand, a sea view on a tourist beach. A retiree who lives here wants almost the opposite: a quiet street, a flat approach, neighbours who are also there in October, shops within a short drive, and a building or estate managed for residents rather than guests.

The practical test is an ordinary Tuesday in the rainy season. Where do you buy groceries, how do you get there, who do you call when the air-conditioning stops, and is anyone else in the building? A home that answers those questions well may photograph less dramatically than a hillside resort villa, and it is usually the better home.

A condominium is the simplest home to own and to leave: the building's juristic person maintains the structure, pool and common areas for a monthly fee, and you lock the door and go. A foreign buyer can hold a unit in their own name within the condominium's 49 per cent foreign quota, usually with funds sent from abroad in foreign currency, so there are no leases or structures to manage. The limits are size and privacy: most condos in the residential south are one- or two-bedroom units, and a garden is rare.

A villa gives space, a private pool and a garden. It also brings a pool pump, a garden and a roof that are your problem, and a land title that a foreign buyer cannot, as a general rule, hold in their own name: the land is usually held on a registered lease of up to 30 years, renewals are not guaranteed, and ownership of the house has to be documented separately. Independent legal review of the lease and of the evidence of ownership of the house is strongly recommended before you commit; nominee arrangements are prohibited, and company ownership is not a simple workaround. Many estates offer management for a fee, which solves the upkeep question but not the ownership one. The choice usually comes down to how much space you want against how much upkeep you are prepared to manage or pay for.

Purpose-built retirement communities with age limits and on-site services are uncommon in Phuket. At the time of writing our catalogue includes one such project, a community for residents aged 50 and over offering apartments and villas with services on site, priced from THB 3.6 million. The more common middle ground is a gated villa estate or a low-rise condominium with a management office, 24-hour security and a shared pool.

Phuket has no rail. Public buses exist, including the Phuket Smart Bus along the west coast between the airport and Rawai and local services on the main roads, but routes and timetables are limited, and ride-hailing apps work across the island. Most residents find a car or a scooter useful, so the practical question is how far you will drive to the shops and whether that road floods or clogs in high season.

Rawai and Chalong have supermarkets, a local market and most everyday services; Cherng Talay and Bang Tao are served by the Boat Avenue and Porto de Phuket retail villages; Kamala has smaller shops, with bigger shopping in Patong or Phuket Town. Bangkok Hospital Phuket and Vachira Phuket Hospital are in Phuket Town, and Bangkok Hospital Siriroj is in Wichit; check that drive on a map against any home you shortlist. What care you need, and where, is for you and your doctor.

Genuinely walkable streets are the exception: the beachfront road at Rawai, the lake and beach at Nai Harn, the centre of Kamala and the Laguna and Boat Avenue area of Cherng Talay are where residents walk to a café or a shop; most villa estates are a drive from everything. If walking matters, say so at the first conversation and the shortlist will look very different.

Single-storey villas exist, but they are not the norm: on the day this guide was written, 28 of our available listings describe themselves as single-storey or single-level, and many listings do not state the number of floors either way. There is no filter for it, so ask for it explicitly and it will be confirmed with the seller before a viewing is arranged. For a condo, lift availability varies by building: some low-rise blocks have one and some do not, so have it confirmed in writing for the specific building, with the walk from the car park to your door.

Upkeep is the hidden cost of a villa: a private pool is cleaned weekly, a tropical garden grows all year, and air-conditioning is serviced two or three times a year. Estates with a management office handle this for a monthly fee; stand-alone villas rely on a caretaker or a company you appoint. Ask the seller for a year of bills for electricity, pool, garden and common-area fees before comparing two homes on price. For a condo, ask for the fee per square metre, the sinking-fund balance and the minutes of the last owners' meeting; they say more about the building than the lobby does.

Rawai and Nai Harn, at the southern tip, are the island's residential south: the largest long-stay community, a local market, two beaches and the Nai Harn lake, flat coastal roads and a hillier interior. Housing is a mix of older villas on large plots, newer estates and low-rise condos. Our Rawai and Nai Harn pages list, between them, around a hundred condos, mostly one- and two-bedroom, and around eighty villas, mostly three and four bedrooms.

Chalong, just north, is the practical hub of the south: supermarkets, the pier, the road to Phuket Town, and hillside villas typically cheaper than Rawai for the same size, with no swimming beach and more traffic. Bang Tao, Laguna and Cherng Talay on the west coast have the island's largest housing stock, the Laguna resort estate with its golf course and lagoons, the Boat Avenue and Porto de Phuket shopping villages, and the highest prices; Layan and Surin are its quieter, dearer neighbours.

Kamala is the quiet village between Patong and Surin, with a clean beach and a small centre you can walk, popular with couples who want the west-coast amenities nearby without living in them. Kata and Karon are beach towns that are busiest in high season and much quieter in the rainy months; they suit a buyer who wants the beach first and does not mind the seasonal rhythm. Patong is the island's busiest town, with the most shops, restaurants and entertainment; it suits a resident who wants that on the doorstep and is a poor fit for one who wants quiet.

A completed resale can be inspected on a Tuesday in October: you see the water pressure, hear the road, meet the neighbours and read the real bills, and you often get the furniture, a grown garden and an owner who may negotiate. For a buyer who wants to move in, a resale offers the chance to inspect the completed home and its running costs before committing, and to move in at transfer.

Off-plan buys a newer layout, a warranty and a lower entry price paid in stages, sometimes on an instalment plan. It also buys a wait, a show unit instead of a home, and reliance on the developer's record. If you buy off-plan with a fixed move date, choose a developer with completed projects you can visit, have the contract and payment schedule reviewed by an independent lawyer, and plan a rental for the months between the promised and the actual handover.

The figures below are asking prices in our catalogue on 30 October 2026 for available listings with a published sale price. They are what sellers ask, not transaction prices or valuations, and they move; we refresh them quarterly. Across the island the middle half of condos is asked at THB 4.2 to 10.5 million (median 6.0 million) and the middle half of villas at THB 17.5 to 41.5 million (median 25.5 million). Townhouses, a small category, sit between at a median of THB 10 million.

In the south, Rawai condos have a median asking price of THB 5.9 million (middle half 4.4 to 8.5 million) and villas THB 23.5 million (16.9 to 32 million); Nai Harn condos THB 5.4 million (3.7 to 9 million) and villas THB 19.9 million (14.7 to 35.7 million); Chalong villas THB 19.8 million (13 to 29.5 million). On the west coast, Bang Tao condos have a median of THB 7.5 million (5.1 to 11.9 million) and villas THB 27 million (19.3 to 43.9 million); Kamala condos THB 7.5 million and villas THB 36.5 million with a wide spread; Kata condos THB 5.5 million and Karon condos THB 4.9 million. The cheapest priced condos in each of these areas start between THB 2 and 3.5 million.

One pattern matters for a resident: in Rawai and Nai Harn the median condo is asked at roughly a quarter of the median villa in the same area, before running costs. Bang Tao's medians are higher than the south's for both condos and villas; the figures above show by how much, and only a like-for-like comparison of specific homes says what the difference buys. Transfer fees, taxes and the lawyer come on top of every figure here.

Tell us how you intend to live, not just what you want to buy: full-time or part of the year, car or no car, stairs or none, pets, guests, and the months you will be away. From that we shortlist from our own catalogue of around a thousand sale listings, including homes that do not describe themselves as single-storey or walkable but are.

We arrange viewings in person or by live video for buyers not yet in Phuket, put your questions on floors, lifts, fees and management to the seller or developer before you travel, and coordinate communication and documents between you, the seller or developer, the juristic person and your lawyer through to handover. We do not give visa, tax or legal advice, and we will say when a question belongs to someone else.

Asking-price ranges, listing counts and the count of single-storey homes come from Planetarium Real Estate's catalogue of available listings on 30 October 2026; they are asking prices, not transaction prices or valuations, and are refreshed quarterly. Bus services are those published by their operators, including phuketsmartbus.com; hospital locations are those the hospitals publish. Ownership rules for foreign buyers are set by the Condominium Act and the Land Code; we strongly recommend confirming how they apply to your purchase with an independent lawyer.