Foreign freehold, whenever it is available.
Why? Because it is actual ownership. Your name appears on the condominium title deed, subject of course to the foreign ownership quota in the building, and you can later sell it on as foreign freehold again. Thai law allows foreigners to own up to 49% of the total condominium area in a registered condominium building.
For me, that means less uncertainty and fewer potential legal complications later.
It is also generally easier to explain to the next buyer. They understand what they are buying.
Leasehold is not ownership
The word “leasehold” sometimes makes things sound more impressive than they really are.
Personally, I prefer to call it what it is: rental.
Legally, it is a lease. Practically, you are paying for the right to use a property for an agreed period of time. You do not own the condominium in the same way as somebody holding foreign freehold title.
That does not automatically make it bad.
There are people for whom a long-term rental arrangement makes perfect sense. Somebody may not know whether they want to remain in Thailand for the next twenty years. They may want flexibility, or perhaps they simply do not want to tie up a large amount of capital in property.
For those people, renting can be perfectly sensible.
But I would not confuse renting with ownership.
Why resale matters
This is something buyers sometimes overlook.
You may be completely comfortable with a lease arrangement today, but eventually somebody else has to be comfortable with it too.
Foreign freehold is easy to understand. A future foreign buyer can see that they are acquiring registered ownership of the condominium.
With a lease, the remaining term becomes important. The shorter that term becomes, the more questions the next buyer is likely to ask.
That can affect both resale value and marketability.
For somebody who genuinely wants to build a long-term life in Thailand and has the opportunity to buy foreign freehold, I therefore see little reason to make things more complicated.
Keep it simple
I have lived in Thailand for nearly 30 years and perhaps that has made me increasingly suspicious of unnecessarily complicated property structures.
If you can own something properly, I prefer ownership.
If you want flexibility and do not know how long you will stay, rent.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with either choice. Just understand the difference.
For me, foreign freehold remains the cleanest form of condominium ownership available to a foreign buyer in Thailand.
And in property, clean and simple is usually a pretty good place to start.