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© EOX · Copernicus Sentinel-2 2016 · CC BY 4.0

Map guides · Episode 5

Hua Hin or Pattaya: two towns by the sea

Neither is an island. They are two mainland towns looking at each other across the Gulf, and often taken to be interchangeable. Their villas are priced the same; almost everything else diverges. Each step stops on a figure from our survey of 23 September 2026.

Survey of 23 September 2026 · asking prices, median per development

Each dot is a development we track; its colour is its median asking price per square metre.

30,000 ฿/m²180,000 ฿/m² and above

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1 of 10 · Two shores of the Gulf

Two towns, not islands: they face each other across the Gulf

Hua Hin and Pattaya are two mainland towns on opposite shores of the Gulf of Thailand, 112.6 km apart as the crow flies. By road you must skirt the head of the Gulf: 5 to 6 hours, according to Wikipedia. From Suvarnabhumi, Pattaya is 87.1 km away, Hua Hin 154.2 km.

Limit · Distances are our own, straight-line, to the median point of the developments. The driving time comes from Wikipedia and has not been timed by us.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Pattaya, accessed 23 September 2026

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2 of 10 · Getting there

Pattaya has an international airport to the south; Hua Hin's handles domestic flights only

U-Tapao, a joint civil and military airport operated by the Royal Thai Navy, lies about 50 km south of Pattaya's Walking Street. Hua Hin's airport, run by the Department of Airports, serves domestic routes only, with no international flights as of summer 2026, according to Wikipedia. Hua Hin, on the other hand, has its railway station on the Southern Line.

Limit · Secondary sources (Wikipedia), consulted on the survey date; neither airline nor railway timetables have been checked.

Wikipedia — U-Tapao International Airport, accessed 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Hua Hin Airport, accessed 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Hua Hin district, accessed 23 September 2026

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3 of 10 · Market size

Pattaya lists 3.5 times as many units for sale as Hua Hin

We track 384 developments in Hua Hin and 652 in Pattaya. The gap widens at unit level: 3,689 units for sale on one side, 12,946 on the other. In condominiums the ratio climbs to 6.6: 1,639 units in Hua Hin, 10,881 in Pattaya.

Limit · Units advertised for sale on the survey date, sold units excluded; 50 units with outlier prices removed in Hua Hin, 10 in Pattaya.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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4 of 10 · Height

The same median building, but Pattaya sells from its towers

In both towns the median condominium has 8 floors. The difference is at the top: 86 Pattaya condominiums reach 20 floors or more, the tallest 67; Hua Hin has 8, the tallest 31 floors. These towers hold 58.1% of the condominium units for sale in Pattaya, 17% in Hua Hin.

Limit · Floor counts as declared on each listing, known for 79 condominiums in Hua Hin and 278 in Pattaya; height itself is not measured.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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5 of 10 · The beaches

Hua Hin unrolls a single shoreline; Pattaya lines up 20 beaches, with an island offshore

Within 3 km of a development, our layer names 6 beaches in Hua Hin — Hua Hin Beach, Hua Don, Khao Takiab, Suan Son Pradiphat, Khao Tao, Sai Noi — running north to south along the same coast. Around Pattaya it names 20, from Wong Amat to Na Jomtien; Koh Larn, 7 km offshore according to Wikipedia, adds 11 more.

Limit · Names from OpenStreetMap: an unnamed beach is not counted, and a name says nothing about the length of sand or the quality of the water.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Pattaya, accessed 23 September 2026

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6 of 10 · On the seafront

On the seafront, a Hua Hin condominium costs more than one in Pattaya

The camera skims the coast. Within 300 m of a beach, condominium space is priced at 123,191 ฿ (€3,210) per m² in Hua Hin, against 74,199 ฿ (€1,934) further back: 66%. In Pattaya, 87,501 ฿ (€2,280) against 65,566 ฿ (€1,709), or 33%. Hua Hin also keeps its condominiums close to the water: 51.9% of them are within 300 m of a beach, against 27.9% in Pattaya.

Limit · Medians per development; n = 41 and 38 in Hua Hin, 76 and 196 in Pattaya. The far band is "beyond 300 m", because Hua Hin has only 10 condominiums more than a kilometre away, below our threshold of 20.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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7 of 10 · The villa

For a villa, the two towns ask the same price per m²

At the median per development, villa space is priced at 41,929 ฿ (€1,093) per m² in Hua Hin and 42,742 ฿ (€1,114) in Pattaya: -2%. In both towns the villa lies inland: 94.2% of Hua Hin's villa developments and 91.8% of Pattaya's are more than 1,000 m from a beach. The gap is in the apartment: 92,844 ฿ (€2,419) per m² in Hua Hin, 70,371 ฿ (€1,834) in Pattaya.

Limit · Asking prices, not sale prices; medians per development, over 260 and 319 villa developments.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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8 of 10 · Off-plan

Counted in buildings, Pattaya is a resale market; counted in units, a new-build one

Only 12.9% of Pattaya's developments are sold off-plan, barely less than in Hua Hin, where the share is 15.2%. Among them are large condominiums: off-plan developments hold 58.3% of the condominium units for sale. The median per-m² price of a condominium unit for sale reaches 125,788 ฿ (€3,278), far above the 70,371 ฿ (€1,834) of the median development, because supply is concentrated: 10 developments hold 45.3% of those units. In Hua Hin, just 2 of 80 condominiums are off-plan.

Limit · Off-plan status as declared on the listing. Among completed developments, the median completion year is 2015 in Hua Hin and 2013 in Pattaya, over 282 and 522 developments with a known year.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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9 of 10 · Living there

The same rainy season; in Pattaya, the hospital is closer

Both towns get their heaviest rain in October, 250.4 mm in Hua Hin and 224.5 mm in Pattaya, for 935.9 and 1,105.8 mm over the year. From a development, the nearest hospital is 5 km away at the median in Hua Hin, 2.9 km in Pattaya. Each town has its Bangkok Hospital and a school preparing for the IB Diploma: Hua Hin International School on one side, Regents International School Pattaya on the other.

Limit · 1991–2020 normals read via Wikipedia, from NOAA for Hua Hin and the WMO for Pattaya. Hospital layer from OpenStreetMap, with no distinction between services; schools named, not counted.

Wikipedia — Hua Hin district, accessed 23 September 2026 · Wikipedia — Pattaya, accessed 23 September 2026 · Bangkok Hospital — Network Hospitals Directory, accessed 23 September 2026 · Hua Hin International School, accessed 23 September 2026 · Regents International School Pattaya, accessed 23 September 2026

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10 of 10 · Who each one suits

Two towns, two ways of living on the coast

Those who want to live facing the sea in a building that already stands find in Hua Hin 41 condominium developments within 300 m of a beach, in a town where just 2 condominiums are sold off-plan; that seafront costs 66% more than further back. Those looking for choice find in Pattaya 10,881 condominium units, 58.3% of them in off-plan developments, 87.1 km from Suvarnabhumi. Those looking for a villa find the same price per m² in both towns, away from the beaches.

Limit · Market facts, not advice: none of these lines says what a property will earn or be worth.

Reflexion survey of 23 September 2026

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Your project, in three questions

City or coast, apartment or villa, to live there or to spend part of the year: three gestures are enough for your advisor to start from your project, not from a catalogue.

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Method and sources

Prices are asking prices, surveyed on 23 September 2026 in our database. For each development we take the median price per square metre of its unsold units; for an area, the median of those medians, shown only from 20 developments upward. A unit is set aside as an outlier below 10,000 ฿/m², above 1,000,000 ฿/m², above 500,000 ฿/m² on less than 30 m² or with no known floor area, above 500 M ฿, or with less than 10 m² per bedroom. The off-plan share counts developments whose status is known. Distances are measured as the crow flies. Euros are converted at €1 = 38.374 ฿ (13 September 2026).

These are listing prices, not sale prices. No figure on this page is a promise of return.

Sources specific to this guide:

This page is market information, not legal, tax or financial advice. The rules quoted are dated; check that they still apply with a professional before any decision.