Phuket Property Price Trends and What Is Driving Them

Every few months a headline announces that Phuket property prices are up. It is worth asking what that sentence is measuring, because the answer is less obvious than it looks. We found no official house price index for Phuket: the price indices published by the Bank of Thailand and the Real Estate Information Center (REIC) cover Bangkok and its surroundings, not the island. So a claim about Phuket property price trends is really drawing on one of four different numbers: what developers are charging for new launches, what online buyers are enquiring about, what sellers are asking on listing sites, or what the Land Department has actually registered. For the same market those numbers can differ by well over half. This piece sets out what each one shows, what is moving them, and how to read the next headline. Whether you should buy at all is a separate question, which we take on in our honest take on Phuket as an investment.

Amounts are in Thai baht (THB), with United States dollars (USD) alongside at the Bank of Thailand reference rate of 21 October 2026, THB 33.6480 to USD 1, rounded.

A launch price is what a developer lists for units in a new project. It tells you about the newest, often most expensive stock, and not about what older units change hands for. An enquiry price is what buyers on a portal are looking at, which tells you about interest rather than deals. An asking price on a listing site is a seller's hope, often drawn from small samples. A registered transfer is a sale that has actually been recorded with the Land Department. Of the four, only the last is a record of something that happened, and in the public data we found it is published mainly as counts and total values, not as prices per square metre.

Keep that in mind through everything below. When two figures disagree, it is usually because they measure different things, not because one of them is wrong.

The Department of Lands figures compiled by REIC show 4,706 condominium ownership transfers in Phuket in 2024 and 5,317 in 2025. The increase is 611 units (5,317 less 4,706), or about 13.0% (611 divided by 4,706). By quarter in 2025 the count was 1,156, 1,540, 1,423 and 1,198, which adds back to 5,317. These are counts of registered sales; they say nothing directly about price.

For foreign buyers, REIC's acting director, Narongpol Prabhanirin, reported through Khaosod English on 4 March 2026 that Phuket recorded 1,190 foreign condominium transfers in 2025 worth THB 6.09 billion, placing it third nationally after Bangkok (7,029 units, THB 35.39 billion) and Chonburi (4,164 units, THB 11.59 billion). Dividing value by units gives an average of about THB 5.12 million per foreign-transferred unit (6.09 billion divided by 1,190), about USD 152,100. That is a derived average, not a median, and a handful of expensive units can pull it up. Setting 1,190 against the 5,317 total suggests roughly 22% of Phuket condominium transfers went to foreigners in 2025, though the two figures come from different REIC series, so treat that share as approximate.

The national picture in the same report is mixed. Thailand recorded 14,899 foreign condominium transfers in 2025, up 2.2%, but their value fell 10.7% to THB 60.92 billion. Russian buyers took 1,172 units, up 8.6%, with value up 30.3% to THB 4.77 billion, mainly in Phuket, Chonburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan. We found no Phuket transfer figures for 2026.

So the measured record says volume rose in 2025. It does not tell us that prices rose, and we have not seen a source that measures that.

The consultancy Knight Frank's year-end 2025 report on Phuket gives average selling prices for new condominium developments generally between THB 125,000 and THB 160,000 per square metre (about USD 3,715 to USD 4,755), with luxury locations above THB 180,000. By area it gives about THB 283,975 per square metre in Bang Tao (USD 8,440), about THB 197,000 in Layan (USD 5,855) and about THB 182,375 in Kamala (USD 5,420). For villas, its per-unit figures are about THB 285.0 million in Layan (USD 8.47 million), THB 255.8 million in Bang Tao (USD 7.60 million) and THB 234.3 million in Kamala (USD 6.96 million), with Cherng Talay, Karon and Bang Jo around THB 150 million to THB 180 million. Those villa figures sit in a chart of average asking prices for stock on sale, so they are developer price lists, not transfer prices. The report gives no year-on-year price change, and we do not invent one.

Enquiry data tells a different story. The portal network FazWaz analysed 54,628 enquiries between December 2025 and May 2026, presented at the C9 Hotelworks Phuket Property Exchange on 11 June 2026. Of those, 15,586 were sale enquiries, about 28.5% (15,586 divided by 54,628), with the rest mostly rental. The median sale budget was THB 7.5 million (USD 222,900). The median price per square metre of the condominiums enquired about was THB 91,757 (USD 2,727), and THB 56,666 (USD 1,684) for houses and villas. By area, condominium medians ranged from THB 126,600 in Choeng Thale and THB 107,142 in Kamala down to THB 32,669 in Si Sunthon.

Put the two side by side and the gap is plain. Knight Frank's lower launch figure of THB 125,000 is about 36% above FazWaz's island-wide condominium enquiry median (125,000 divided by 91,757 is about 1.36). In Kamala, Knight Frank's THB 182,375 is about 70% above FazWaz's THB 107,142 (182,375 divided by 107,142 is about 1.70). Neither is wrong. One measures new launches; the other measures what buyers are looking at, which includes older and cheaper stock.

C9 Hotelworks also noted a March 2026 spike in which sale enquiries rose to 45% of the total against 18% in December 2025, and the median sale budget jumped from THB 6 million to THB 14 million (about USD 178,300 to USD 416,100), before dropping back to THB 6 million by April. A headline written in March would have described a boom; the data a month later did not support it.

Knight Frank counts a cumulative condominium supply of 42,061 units in 2025. Launches fell 51.7% to 5,073 units and sales to 4,455, with Bang Tao accounting for 30.8% of launches and 32.7% of sales. On villas, cumulative supply was 7,789; launches fell 48.2% to 774, while sales rose 12.9% to 631. In other words, developers launched far fewer villas, but more of them sold.

A wider survey by the Agency for Real Estate Affairs (AREA), led by Dr Sopon Pornchokchai and reported by The Nation on 12 September 2026, counted 806 projects with 90,597 units worth THB 705.055 billion (about USD 20.95 billion). Of those, 76,582 had sold, about 85% (76,582 divided by 90,597), leaving 14,015 units. AREA put absorption at 5.2% a month, which implies about 19.2 months to sell out with no new launches (1 divided by 0.052). Newly marketed units in 2026 numbered 13,779 at an average of THB 12.812 million (about USD 380,800). For resort condominiums, the largest price band was THB 3 million to THB 5 million (11,849 units, 29%), followed by THB 5 million to THB 7 million (8,072 units, 25%). For resort villas, 43% (2,930 units) sat between THB 20 million and THB 40 million. Thalang held 411 of the 806 projects.

That supply matters for buyers. Knight Frank expects competition from off-plan projects to push developers towards incentives, which is a view rather than a measurement, but it suggests the negotiating position is not all on the seller's side.

The sourced drivers are fewer than the headlines suggest. Foreign demand is one: the REIC figures put Phuket third nationally for foreign condominium transfers, and Russian buyers' national transfer value rose 30.3% in 2025. Land is another, in Knight Frank's view: it points to limited beachfront land on the west coast and rising land and development costs. Visitor demand is a third. Phuket's airport handled 17,474,064 passengers in 2025, up about 1.5% from 17,215,314, according to its managing director as reported by The Phuket News; that is a large, steady base, not a sharp rise.

Infrastructure is not yet a driver. The tram, the Patong tunnel and the airport expansion are not built, as our honest take on Phuket explains, and a price justified by them is a price paid for something that does not yet exist. For how visitor demand moves across the year, see Phuket through the year.

The same FazWaz data gives a median monthly rental budget of THB 35,000 (USD 1,040). The monthly median rose from THB 33,000 in December 2025 to THB 40,000 in April 2026, about 21% (7,000 divided by 33,000), before easing to THB 38,000 in May. Those are what renters say they will pay, not achieved rents, and the movement covers a single high season. We have no measured rental yield for Phuket and do not quote one. If you are weighing rental income, our piece on managing an overseas holiday rental covers the practical side.

When you see a Phuket price claim, ask four questions:

1. Is it a launch price, an enquiry price, an asking price or a registered transfer?
2. Is it for condominiums or villas, and for which area?
3. Is it an average, a median or a single example?
4. Does it compare like with like over time, or two different measures?

Several figures that circulate widely fail those tests. We have seen transfer counts far higher than the Land Department series, and per square metre averages that we could not trace to an original source. We have left them out.

This is not for a buyer looking for a confident forecast. The data we could verify shows rising transfer volumes, a wide spread of price levels by measure and area, and a large stock of units, but no measured price trend. If you need a number to anchor an offer, the registered transfer data is the most reliable starting point, and a valuation of the specific unit will tell you more than any island-wide figure. Before buying, read our guides to owning property in Thailand as a foreigner, the Thai condominium foreign quota, Thai property taxes and fees, Thai title deeds, the Thai 30-year lease and company structures and land ownership risk.

Phuket's market is busy, not mysterious. More condominium transfers were registered in 2025 than in 2024, foreign buyers took a meaningful share, villa launches fell sharply while villa sales rose, and new launches are priced well above what most buyers are enquiring about. What is missing is an official measure of price change. Until one exists, the sensible reading of any Phuket price headline is to identify which of the four numbers it uses before deciding what it means. Our Phuket guide, Thailand guide and Bangkok guide give the wider context, and our explainer on foreign property ownership and our piece on TCS on foreign remittances, on Tax Collected at Source for buyers remitting from India, cover the practical steps.

• REIC: Phuket condominium ownership transfers (GHB REIC magazine)
• Khaosod English: China still tops Thai condo market
• Knight Frank: Phuket villa and condominium market, year-end 2025
• The Nation: AREA survey of the Phuket market
• C9 Hotelworks: Data versus Dogma presentation
• C9 Hotelworks: real estate news
• FazWaz: what 54,628 buyer and tenant enquiries reveal
• Bank of Thailand: foreign exchange reference rates
• The Phuket News: Phuket airport passenger numbers rebound