Phuket brought ฿176,538 million worth of new residential and resort units to market in 2026 — more than any other Thai province outside greater Bangkok. The figure comes from the annual field survey run by the Agency for Real Estate Affairs (AREA), whose findings Dr. Sopon Pornchokchai, president of the Thai Real Estate Research and Valuation Center at AREA, set out in a briefing reported on 11 September 2026. Chonburi, the runner-up, added ฿151,822 million; Rayong added ฿51,453 million.
Supply this large is only a problem if it sits
AREA’s survey counts 806 residential and resort projects currently selling on the island, holding 90,597 units with a combined value of ฿705,055 million. Of those units, 76,582 have sold — 85% of everything on the market, worth ฿527,777 million in sales value.
The pace behind that number is 5.2% of stock a month. At that rate, AREA projects the remaining unsold units would clear in about 19.2 months, roughly 1.6 to 1.7 years, if no developer launched another project. The launch freeze is an assumption rather than a forecast, but the ratio behind it gives the shape of the market: a large pipeline meeting demand fast enough that the island is not accumulating dead inventory.
The ฿176,538 million Phuket brought to market this year is 13,779 units — fewer than either Chonburi or Rayong put on the market. Phuket still leads on value because each unit costs more: across the units newly marketed in 2026, a Phuket unit averages ฿12.812 million, more than double Bangkok’s ฿5.808 million and more than triple Chonburi’s ฿4.035 million. A buyer comparing provinces on unit counts alone would read Phuket as the smaller market; on money, it is the biggest one outside the capital.
The island sells holidays, not homes
Vacation-oriented product dominates the value even though it does not dominate the count. Resort villas (6,830 units) and resort condos (40,263 units) together make up 52% of everything on the market but 80% of its total value — over ฿560,000 million between them.
- Vacation villas and condos80%
- Local-market product20%
The other 20% of value is product aimed at Thai residents and local workers, and it moves at only about 3% a month against the island-wide 5.2%. AREA’s survey describes that local segment as fragile by comparison. For anyone buying on Phuket, the split matters more than the headline absorption rate: the island’s strength is concentrated in the product foreigners and holidaymakers buy, and the domestic end of the island carries a slower, thinner market of its own.
Dr. Sopon’s survey names Russian and CIS buyers as the largest foreign group, buying chiefly to relocate and to move capital out of home markets, followed by Chinese and other Asian buyers, Western Europeans and Middle Eastern buyers. It also records a shift toward younger purchasers — digital nomads and high-income remote workers who treat a Phuket address as a base rather than a holiday.
Thalang has become its own premium market
One district carries a disproportionate share of all this. Thalang — covering Cherng Talay, Bang Tao, Layan, Si Sunthon and Thep Krasattri on the west and north of the island — holds 411 projects, more than any other district in the province. Its resort condos alone come to 24,994 units worth ฿236,807 million, which is 53% of the whole province’s resort-condo value.
AREA’s survey sets out why the money concentrates there. Phuket International Airport is 15 to 25 minutes away. The land is flat and developable, unlike hilly Patong. The amenities are already built — Laguna Phuket, Porto de Phuket, Boat Avenue, Blue Tree — and international schools such as UWC Thailand and Headstart serve the expat families who move in behind them. The west-coast beachfront is quieter and more private than the tourist strips, which suits the long-term relocation demand from foreign buyers looking for a second home. Major Thai developers have invested densely into the district — Sansiri, Supalai, Origin Property, Singha Estate — alongside local brands such as Botanica and The Title. Rental yields there run 6% to 10% a year.
Price is following. Dr. Sopon’s report states that units launched across 2025 and 2026 averaged ฿10 million, while newly launched villas averaged ฿32 million. The villa figure sits at roughly two and a half times the ฿12.812 million average across Phuket’s 2026 new supply, while the ฿10 million across all new launches sits below it. The premium is concentrated at the villa end rather than spread across everything being built.
What the survey does not settle
The 19.2-month clearance estimate is a projection on a fixed assumption — no new launches — and the survey itself records that 2026 launches were the largest of any province outside Bangkok, so the real figure depends on what developers do next.
Neither report breaks Phuket’s absorption or supply down by product type beyond the splits above, so there is no separate clearance rate for villas against condos, or for Thalang against the rest of the island. And no government dataset cross-checks any of it: neither the Real Estate Information Center nor the Land Department has published province-level figures covering the same period, and these numbers reach the public through reporting of Dr. Sopon’s briefing rather than through a published AREA dataset.
The two sources also disagree on what the 13,779-unit figure counts. Nation Thailand’s English report describes it as newly marketed units added in 2026, which is the reading this article uses: 13,779 units at ฿12.812 million each comes to the ฿176,538 million of 2026 supply the same survey reports, so the number and the average price belong to one population. Positioningmag’s Thai-language report attaches AREA’s own term for unsold, ready-to-transfer stock to the same figure, and ties the same ฿12.812 million average to that reading. Its label would describe a different set of units, but only the newly marketed reading multiplies out to the ฿176,538 million of 2026 supply. No published AREA dataset settles which reading is correct.
