Minor Just Put Numbers on Phuket’s Branded Residences. Read the Structure, Not the Headline

Minor International, the group behind Anantara, gave the Bangkok Post a rare look inside its Phuket residential book this week. Developers do not usually publish who bought, how they bought, or what the units are worth now. Minor did all three. The number everyone will quote is the appreciation. The number that matters is the structure.

What Minor said

Three projects, all at Layan, all attached to Anantara hotels.

Layan Residences by Anantara launched in 2014 and sold out. Avadina Hills by Anantara launched in 2015 and sold out. Kiara Reserve launched in 2024 with 46 units: 29 condominiums of 251 to 800 square metres at 44.5 to 125 million baht, and 17 villas of 501 to 655 square metres at 70 to 125 million baht. Roughly three quarters are gone, with ten to twelve left.

Across the three projects, 80 per cent of buyers are foreign nationals, and they bought leasehold. About 70 per cent of owners put their property into the hotel’s rental programme, where Layan villas fetch 200,000 to 700,000 baht a night.

Then the line that will do the rounds: Layan units that sold for around 300 million baht are now, in Minor’s view, worth close to 500 million.

Minor also said it wants branded residences to grow from 10 to 15 per cent of group revenue to 30 to 40 per cent within a few years, and that Phuket is its largest residential market. William Heinecke was asked about Phuket oversupply and said he was not worried, because very few projects combine residences with a hotel operation.

The appreciation figure, handled carefully

Fifty per cent in ten years is a good result. It is also a valuation, not a transaction. Minor is the party with the most reason to believe it. Treat it as the developer’s opinion of its own stock, which is what it is.

That is not a criticism. Every developer values its own book generously. The point is that if you are modelling a purchase at this end of the market, you use resale evidence, not a press quote, and at this end of the market there is very little resale evidence because owners rarely sell. The rental income is real and audited by the operator. The capital growth is an estimate until someone writes a cheque.

The structure is the story

Look at what Minor described. Foreign buyers. Leasehold title. A hotel operator running the building, the rental programme and the maintenance. No Thai company holding the land on the buyer’s behalf, because none is needed.

Set that against the rest of the villa market in 2026. The Land Department and the DBD have spent this year working through Thai companies that exist only to hold land for a foreign shareholder. If you have read my earlier piece on the nominee crackdown, you know the exposure: a villa held through a company the foreign owner does not control in substance is a villa whose ownership can be unwound.

The branded residence segment has almost none of that exposure. Nobody at Layan is pretending to own land. The lease is registered, the operator is a listed company with a 30-year reputation on the line, and the buyer’s rights are set out in documents that were drafted for an international audience and reviewed by international lawyers before the first unit sold. While the state hunts nominees, this end of the market has nothing to hide.

That is the real reason Heinecke can shrug at oversupply. It is not that Phuket is short of villas. It is that Phuket is short of villas where the ownership structure, the operator and the rental engine are all legitimate on day one.

What the numbers mean for a buyer

Three things I take from this:

Leasehold is not a compromise at this level, it is the product. Eighty per cent of buyers, paying between 44 and 125 million baht, chose a registered lease. They did not choose it because they were misled about freehold. They chose it because a clean 30-year registered lease with a listed operator is a better asset than a freehold villa held through a company that may not survive an audit. If you have been told leasehold is only for people who cannot afford freehold, the Layan buyer list says otherwise.

The rental programme is the yield, and it is operator-dependent. Seventy per cent of owners rent through the hotel. At 200,000 to 700,000 baht a night on a villa, that is a serious income line, but it exists because Anantara fills the rooms. Buy the same villa without the operator and the nightly rate is a different number. When I assess a branded residence for a client, the operator agreement gets more time than the floor plan: term, termination rights, the split, the maintenance charge, and what happens if the brand walks.

The exit is thin by design. Sold-out projects with owners who do not sell produce almost no resale evidence. That supports the valuation story and complicates the exit. If you are buying with a five-year horizon, ask who the buyer of your unit is in 2031 and where they come from. At Layan the answer is probably another foreign buyer on the same lease, which is fine, so long as the lease term remaining still makes sense to them.

What it means for an owner

If you own a branded residence in Phuket and are thinking about selling, this article is your comparable. A listed developer has publicly put a 50 per cent decade on your neighbours. Your listing should say what the operator is, what the rental programme returned last year in actual figures, and how many years remain on the lease. That is what your buyer’s advisor will ask on the first call, and an owner who has the answers ready sells faster and at a better number.

The read

Minor has told the market what the top of Phuket looks like: foreign, leasehold, hotel-run. It has also, without quite meaning to, explained why that segment is the least worried about 2026. The structure was always clean. The rest of the island is catching up.

If you are looking at a branded residence in Phuket, or you own one and want it valued properly before you list, message me on WhatsApp: +66 93 760 8561.

Source: Bangkok Post, “Minor puts faith in branded residences”, 9 September 2026. Figures are as reported by Minor International executives; the appreciation figure is the developer’s own valuation and not a recorded sale.

Rex Butler, Founder & Principal Advisor, Butler Estates. This is general market commentary, not legal, tax or investment