GH BANK WANTS RULES APPLIED NATONWIDE

       The government Housing Bank will ask the Board of Investment to extend the new rules for affordable housing to the provinces in order to provide home-ownership opportunities to low-income earners across the country.
       The bank also will offer a special mortagage package for the BoI's low-priced housing project, including a low interest rate long repayment term and maybe easider approval criteria, GH Bank president Khan Parachuabmoh said yesterday.
       The new rules for residential projects located in BoI's Zone 1, covering greater Bangkok, went in to effect on June 10.
       The new rules are revised from the old rules used since 1993. They include relaxing project size form a minimum of 150 units to 50 units to 50 units and distinguishing between condominium and low-rise projects.
       For condos, units must be at least 28 square metres and priced not more than Bt1 million. For low rises, units must have at least 70 square metres of usable space and be priced not more than Bt1.2 million.
       Khan siad that if the new rules were applied nationwide, that would help lowe-income earners have the ability to buy a new home.
       Buyers who want to finance a Bt1-million residence with BoI privileges must show net income of at least Bt25,000 per month. This will be enough to pay instalments of Bt8,000 per month.
       The Thai Real Estate Association, Thai Condominium Association and Business Housing Association agreed with this idea, Tehy also want the BoI to ease its rules further to allow mixed condo projects, with some units priced up to Bt1 million but others priced over Bt1 million, so that they would be more commercially viable.
       Follwing this suggestion, the associations offer the condition that mixed condo projects would have at least 50 units priced not more that Bt1 million each.
       Industry Minister Charnchai Chairungrueng said the government was ready to consider the ideas as soon as possible after GH Bank and the associations propose them in writing to the BoI.
       "We will do anything that helps lower-income people to have a home more esilythan before. This also is one of the government's stimulus measures to drive the economy throuhg the property sector, he said.
       As of August 14.25 residential projects with 8,690 units had applied for BoI tax incentives under the new rules. With an estimated comstruction cost of Bt1.89 billion, their total project value would be about Bt8 billion.
       Issara Boonyong, president of the Business Housing Association, said the association believed that the new rules would boost BoI-promoted residences to at least 20,000 units worth more than Bt20 billion a year.
       Atip Bichanond, president of the Thai Concominium Assocition, said that if the government also stretched the rules for condo projects to include mixed projects, there may be more than 20,000 units a year.
       Kittipol Pramoj na Ayudhya, president of the Thai Real Estate Association, said that if the governemtn applied the new rules upcountry, it would support the government's policy to implement a property tax.
       That is because it will force provincial landlords to develop their vacant land rather than hold their property, as is the case now.