Cambodia Investment Review
After being severely impacted by COVID-19 for over two years, Cambodia’s real estate market has started to see an increase in international investors with over 62% of respondents from a recent Real Estate & Construction survey conducted by AmCham Cambodia, indicating that buying property in Cambodia is a good investment now.
While making a presentation of the survey during the annual survey dinner gathering, Tom O’Sullivan, CEO of realestate.com.kh, said that over 57% of the 517 respondents felt that the market is unaffordable.
To read more about the markets trends for Cambodia’s real-estate market click here.
O’Sullivan highlighted the opportunity in the market for developers and others to target the lower to middle-class buyer segment. This was further supported by over 63% of respondents suggesting the industry is not doing enough to ensure properties remain affordable for all Cambodians.
Over 63% believed that the prices will only go up in the next 12 months as the market continues to rebound post-COVID-19.
Participants were drawn from different segments of the population including ministries and the government sector, banks, and financial institutions, the legal and compliance sector as well as the private sector. The latter included property managers, developers, contractors, architects, real estate agents or brokers, and valuation service providers.
Land still remains favored investment
Land is still the preferred investment for many with nearly 43% indicating it in the survey. Landed property comes next with 23% voting for it, while 20% showed a preference for condominiums and 6% for commercial property. However, 6% percent were unsure about this.
Meanwhile, Phnom Penh remained the favorite real estate for a huge majority with 82% of respondents declaring so. Among the participants, 28% were Cambodians and 24% American nationals, while 46% represented other nationalities.
Addressing potential oversupply concerns, nearly half of the participants indicated there are issues of oversupply but only in some parts of the market. However, with the country now being easily accessible again with little to no restrictions in place this is starting to shift in a positive direction.
Managing Director of CBRE Cambodia, Lawrence Lennon suggested during the panel discussion that “Whilst clearly the pandemic presented a tough period for business in general, the last two years has provided an opportunity for the market to cool and projects to be absorbed by the market – which is likely one of many silver linings from COVID-19.”
To read more about Lawrence Lennon in Cambodia click here.
To complement the AmCham survey results Tom O’Sullivan also presented Realestate.com.kh website traffic and survey results.
Local buyers at the forefront
According to O’Sullivan (based on website traffic) showed that 51% of the real estate buyers were Cambodians, while Chinese came next at 26% and Americans at 23%. He said the Chinese buying came down from the pre-Covid-19 level of 40%.
The Chroy Changvar district of Phnom Penh is the favorite area for property buyers with 21% showing a preference for the location (up from 12% in 2017), Sen Sok at 15%, and Chamkarmon at 13%.
Toul Kork which was sought by 14% in 2017 showed a sharp decline this time to 8% and Daun Penh too went down in preference from 10% to 5% over the same period.
To read more about the Realestate Expo 2022 click here.
O’Sullivan said there are a lot of opportunities in the property market now and it is a great time to buy both for international buyers and local home buyers.
“The interest in the market has particularly gone up in anticipation of the South East Asia (SEA) Games, to be hosted by Cambodia next year. The AmCham survey is also showing that the property prices can further go up in the near future,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lawrence Lennon said the average sale price for high-end condominiums for the second quarter of 2022 was $2,671sqm. The average monthly rental for prime retail malls was $30.8sqm while prime condos attracted a monthly rent of $10.4sqm for the quarter.
