Story : Marie Moon   
Images : courtesy of The Village Coconut Island
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Following the official launch of The Village Coconut Island in December 2007 the island development has seen a bumper sales period averaging one luxury villa sale every week.

A Popular Choice

Sales Manager Jay Walker said, “We’ve been very busy recently. We’ve currently got 57 villas released for sale and 44 of them have already been sold. The completion of the show villa has had a big impact. When you go looking at properties do you want to buy something computer generated or something you can see, feel and touch? OK the savvy people, the business people, will buy off plan but it’s often purely for investment. For our buyers it’s a lifestyle choice and for a lot of them it’s the majority of their life savings that they are putting in.”

The Village is a watersports resort development situated on Coconut Island, just 300 metres off Phuket’s central east coast, in scenic Phang Nga Bay. The remarkable sea views, coupled with a wide range of product, from two to five bedroom villas and apartments, and guaranteed rental returns has rendered The Village one of the most popular choices for Phuket lifestyle investors.

Jay demonstrated, “Our buyers are mainly expats in South-East Asia; Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai. We have a lot of Scandinavians, some Russians. Almost all of them are taking the guaranteed rental returns and they’ll enjoy the villa on their holidays. A few buyers are going to live at The Village full time and a few of the guys from Singapore have not entered the rental pool because it’s only just over an hour away and they’ll use it for weekends.”

Close to Completion

Construction at The Village is progressing smoothly and since the launch a total of 16 villas have been finished. Jay said the 44 villas that have been sold to date will be completed by November 2008. He added, “The main resort pool is completed and the beach restaurant and bar is open and fully functional. We’ve now got three of our speed boat water taxis that can be used for day trips. We haven’t got a huge amount of kit, watersports wise, but that will be added to as we go along; it’s pointless having it all there and not being used.”

Over the last year and a half as Sales Manager for The Village Jay has been very successful, even selling four villas to one client. He said modestly, “There is a certain amount of luck to every sale but really it’s The Village itself; it’s working and the leads are coming through. We also made a few interesting decisions to go into certain magazines that have worked very well for us. We’ve hit a couple of the (property) shows and we might not sell at the show but we generate a lot of interest and people end up coming to see us.

“We are very different from a lot of the developments in Phuket. We offer something different; the island. Sometimes it’s the accessibility that people don’t like. They’ve said, ‘I want to be able to just jump in the car and go to the shops.’ I tell them perhaps this is not the development for you but most people love the idea of really getting away from the busyness of Phuket but still being able to enjoy all that it has to offer.”

The Village is Thailand’s first watersports island resort and is being developed by the same British team that built Sunsail into the world’s leading watersports club brand.

For further information about The Village Coconut Island
Tel: +66(0)76 239 724    www.thevillage-coconutisland.com