Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation’s (OCIC) Olympia City condo development will allow residents to officially move in at the start of 2017.

Meng Chamroeun, chief engineer of Olympia City, said to Post Property earlier this week that management was currently allowing house owners to inspect their units ahead of settlement in the C1 and C2 buildings next year.

He added that there would be 700 houses ready for owners or tenants to move in. Meanwhile, owners of buildings C3 and C4 will be able to start settling in in mid-2017.

“C1 and C2 have 21 floors. From ground floor to the fourth floor, we have commercial units. From the fifth to the twentieth floor, we have residential units and a swimming pool. As for the twenty-first floor, there is a sky bar restaurant and a swimming pool,” Chamroeun said.

Sun Hourt, manager of Olympia City’s sales department, said there would be an influx of people moving in next year because 90 percent of the units had already sold out.

Hourt added, “Seventy percent of our clients for this project are Cambodian while the remaining thirty percent are foreigners, mostly Chinese as well as other nationalities.”

Money will start rolling in for OCIC in line with the phased completion. It’s understood that condos for the multi-million dollar Olympia City project have been sold for $2,000 to $3,000 per metre square, up to three times more expensive than their original cost of construction.

This is the first piece of good news to concern Olympia City in recent times, with construction issues often overshadowing the development.

In late 2014, a rod fell from one of the Olympia City’s buildings, causing the tragic death of a woman who was driving with her child on the road. More recently, a road collapse next to the development swallowed one vehicle and heavily damaged two others during a flash flood.

Olympia City, a mixed-use development consisting of condominiums, offices and retail space, is earmarked for overall completion in 2019. However, the project will come online amid a growing residential oversupply in the Kingdom.

According to a recent study by CBRE Cambodia, there will be 27 condominium projects coming onto the market in 2017, amounting to about 8,100 units.

Thida Ann, deputy director of CBRE Cambodia, said the current occupation rate for apartments was 86 percent, but noted the occupation rate for condos was lower.

She noted that if supply were to continue to increase, it would make it harder to increase prices for existing apartments unless the owner were to renovate as a way to lure in tenants.

Kim Heang, president of the Cambodian Valuers and Estate Agents Association, said while most people buy condos for investing, he acknowledged it was positive to hear that OCIC would soon allow their clients to settle into their new homes.

While condos are still a relatively new housing concept to locals, Heang predicts this type of dwelling would gain traction in the future.

“I think in three to five years’ time there will be more condo dwellers. The traffic jams make it hard for people to commute in and out of the city, so as a result, they will naturally stay in condos,” he said.