9/9/2026 4:00 AM (PST)

My husband and I are in Escondido, CA and we are buying a condo in Phuket. Not retiring there, not yet. The idea is to have somewhere warm that is ours for December through February, and to stop living out of hotels every winter. We have it down to two areas, Bang Tao and Kamala, and there are five units on the list. I have been going through https://tranio.com/thailand/phuket/apartments/ since the spring, mostly to get a feel for what a normal asking price is for the size we want, and I keep a spreadsheet with what I see each month. My husband thinks I have gone overboard with the spreadsheet. We fly out in November to walk the short list in person. Two weeks, and we would like to come home having decided. So, for anyone here who has bought abroad: how many trips did it actually take before you were ready to commit? Did you do one long trip like we are planning, or several short ones spread over a year?