PHUKET, THAILAND — When there’s blood in the streets, can you sell real estate, even if it is your own? That is the question facing property developers, brokers and investors here.
The island, Thailand’s largest, is one of Asia’s top markets for vacation villas. Behind the casuarina trees along “Millionaire’s Mile,” luxury multimillion-dollar homes perch on cliffs, their marble swimming pools looking out west over the Andaman Sea. Along Phuket’s roads, billboards tout “no risk” deals and flash pictures of fancy seafront apartments.
But its rampant development has ground to a halt as a result of the global financial crisis and the political crisis since the removal of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister, in a coup in September 2006.
