Foreign Money Is Reshaping Phuket’s Property Market. Who Really Benefits?

Phuket is no longer just a beach holiday. Over the past five years, the island has become one of Thailand’s most active residential property markets, and much of the money driving that shift comes from abroad.

Between 2021 and 2025, developers launched 45,066 new residential units in Phuket, with a combined project value of about 469.7 billion baht, or roughly US$13 billion. By the end of 2025 alone, more than 72 new condominium, housing, and holiday-home projects had come to market, adding over 10,312 units and more than 81.6 billion baht in new investment.

Behind these numbers sits a clear shift in who is buying, and why.

From holiday speculation to long-term residency

For years, foreign interest in Phuket followed a familiar pattern. Buyers from abroad purchased a condominium, used it for a few weeks each year, and rented it through booking platforms for the rest of the year.

That pattern is changing. Buyers from Russia, Australia, India, China, Kazakhstan, and other markets are increasingly treating Phuket as a place to live, retire, or hold long-term income-producing assets, not just a place to park spare cash. Nation Thailand, citing Colliers, notes that Phuket’s visitor mix remains strong among travellers from Russia, Australia, India, China, and Kazakhstan, and that many of these groups have also become property buyers and long-stay residents.

The villa segment shows the clearest sign of this shift. Phuket’s villa market saw transactions rise more than 20% in 2025, with 1,263 new villa launches, up 51% from 2023, and a 76% clearance rate for luxury homes priced above 90 million baht. In the holiday-home segment, supply reached about 1,100 units across 40 projects worth more than 27.2 billion baht, with over 58% concentrated in Cherng Talay, an area especially popular among Russian buyers.

This is the part of the story that matters for development. When a holiday market turns into a residency market, the local economy changes with it.

Where management fits in

That change shows up fastest in one place: who runs these properties after the sale. A large share of foreign owners do not live in their Phuket units full-time, so many depend on rental management, guest operations, maintenance, and revenue management to keep earning.

As villa sales have climbed, the specialist work of villa management in Phuket has grown alongside it. Operators of this kind are not new to the island. Lofty Phuket, for example, says it has managed villas in Phuket for more than 10 years, with more than 100 villas handled across the island.

That service layer is now a real part of the local economy. It employs staff, keeps properties occupied outside peak season, creates work for cleaners, maintenance teams, drivers, photographers, guest-service teams, and contractors, and shapes how much rental spending actually stays in Phuket rather than flowing straight back offshore.

The local economy question

Foreign capital brings construction jobs, land transactions, tax activity, and demand for local services. It also brings pressure.

Land prices rise. Housing that once served local families gets repriced for international buyers. Roads, water supply, drainage, and waste systems built for a smaller population come under pressure. These tensions are not unique to Phuket. They are common in coastal property booms across the Global South, from Bali to the Caribbean.

Phuket’s supply is also becoming geographically concentrated. Colliers’ 2025 market review shows Bang Tao and Cherng Talay as major focus areas for condominium and villa development, while villa supply remains especially active in Bang Tao, Rawai, and nearby growth zones. That kind of concentration can make the local market more vulnerable if demand from one major buyer group cools.

What sustainable growth would look like

Phuket’s trajectory is not unusual. Coastal economies across Asia and the wider Global South have watched foreign property money arrive quickly, lift prices, and then test the limits of local housing and infrastructure.

The lesson from those markets is that growth alone is not development.

Whether Phuket’s boom leaves the island better off depends on choices that have little to do with sales brochures: how new supply is planned, how rental income is taxed, whether local housing remains affordable, whether infrastructure keeps pace, and whether foreign-owned properties support local employment beyond the initial construction cycle.

The capital will keep coming. The harder question is who it is building for.