The more Cambodia’s economy grows and the more investors come into Cambodia has had some positive and negative effects, and one of those effects is to push up land prices in Phnom Penh for the first quarter in 2013, an increase of 15 per cent.

Sorn Seap, the general manager at KEY Real Estate Co, Ltd, has studied land prices in four districts in Phnom Penh during the first quarter of the year. He says KEY Real Estate Co, Ltd conducted the study on land prices in four of nine districts in Phnom Penh, such as Chamkar Mon, Daun Penh, 7 Makara and Toul Kork.

The study found that the average land value climbed by 15 per cent during the first quarter of 2013.

His company’s report showed that in the first quarter of 2013, the average land price per square metre was US$2,350, while in the same period last year it was US$2,050.

Meanwhile, land in areas that was valued at between US$1,000 and US$1,600 is now worth from US$1,100 to US$1,700, and the price of land along some of the main roads which was between US$2,100 and US$3,300 in the first quarter of the year have increased to between US$2,400 and US$4,000.

Land prices around the Central Market jumped from about US$6,000 at the end of the first quarter of 2012 to US$8,000 per square metre now.

Land prices in Beoung Keng Kang 1 located along four main streets were previously valued at from US$3,000 to US$5,000 and have increased by between US$3,000 and US$6,000 per square metre. Along the smaller streets land is now worth from US$1,500 to US$3,500 per square metre.

Sorn Seap said: “The factor of increasing the land prices is due to such reasons as the growth of development and the need for new houses (owing to the green light from banks decreasing interest rate and more long-term loans). Another important one is because of more foreigners coming to work and investing in Cambodia.”

When asked if land prices would change after the election, Sor Seap said it depended on the flexibility of market prices. But he added that things would improve after the election because more investors would enter Cambodia, then land prices may increase by approximately 10 per cent during the final months of the year.

“Though the situation after the election will be constrained, it may not be a long, drawn-out period as I believe our politicians can handle things,” he said.

At the same time, a report after research by the Khmer Real Estate Company, which was completed recently, said land prices in Phnom Penh in the first quarter of 2013 increased by about 20 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Kim Heang, the president of Khmer Real Estate Co, Ltd, said the reason for the increasing prices of property in the capital was because our economic growth is healthy, especially the increasing flow of Japanese investors.

“Now we have good products without fearing a lack of buyers. We do not care about the market prices provided that we have good products because we have a lot of buyers needing them,” he said.