Property Newsroom chats with Andres Pira, the CEO of Blue Horizon Developments, one of Thailand’s leading real estate developers.
Hi Andres, can you tell us a little about your background, education and early working career, please?
I am originally from Stockholm in Sweden. I moved from Sweden fairly young, when I was only 20 years old. I was never really happy in Scandinavia and I always had a dream of living in a tropical country with sunshine all year round. I was supposed to travel around Asia and the first country I visited was Thailand. I ended up staying here until now.
How did you get into the property industry and what was your role within it?
I got my first job in Thailand as a marketing executive for a real estate developer and my duties were to give out brochures outside their real estate office hoping someone would be interested enough to walk inside to get more information.
How did the transition to developer transpire and was it a big learning curve?
After my job as a marketing executive, I got promoted to be a sales agent and I became very good at selling properties, so within a year, I got promoted to Sales manager which gave me the responsibility to coach and lead the team of sales agents within the organization.
A year after that they made me sales director of the company since I was achieving outstanding results and I worked there for another 2 years until I decided to open up my own real estate agency.
Another 3 years passed by and I started to acquire several property investors who believed in my ideas and had full confidence and trust in me after many successful property transactions and great investment allocations. That led to my very first development, having trusted investors to fund it.
What lessons did you learn and what would you do differently if given your time again?
Being a property developer means you need to have many years of planning ahead and pay attention to details since it involves so many departments so many steps of construction and dealing with all different government officials which is very time consuming and delicate. I have learned to be very patient in many situations within this industry. Hasty decisions can lead to big losses.
Why did you choose to develop in Thailand?
Thailand is a world top destination and we keep seeing an increase of arrivals year after year so it was an easy choice to decide to develop real estate here. I love the country as well, the food, the people, the nature and the cost of living.
You have become one of Thailand’s leading real estate developers, how have you achieved that and what would you say distinguishes you from the competition?
We are now one of the leading property developers not only in Phuket but in the whole of south Thailand and we have gained that reputation and status because we strive for excellence and we make sure to only work with the very best in this industry, such as architects, contractors and agencies in the region.
We follow the market intensively and as well pave the way for new concepts and designs making us leaders in this industry. Since we also operate Phuket’s leading and largest real estate agency we have an upper advantage in following our competitors closely and can clearly see how the market is moving and what’s in demand and popular, that gives us an upper hand and clear ideas on what our next development should be like.
What is the current state of the real estate market in the country and where do you see it going, (what and where to buy etc)
Phuket is transforming itself into the metropolis of Southeast Asia and our millions of tourists arriving keep on increasing year after year, this drives the demand for properties to higher levels than we have ever seen before. I predict a great future ahead and I believe that we have just started seeing the tip of the iceberg, especially in the Chinese sector.
What does the future hold for you and Blue Horizon Developments Co.Ltd
We at Blue Horizon have several developments at the planning phase as we speak and we strive to hold the title as the leading developer in Thailand for many more years to come. We will keep improving our developments, our experiences and make sure our clients and investors gain exceptional returns on their investments.
Thank you for your time today Andres.
