Por Senchey, the largest district of Phnom Penh that covers parts of the capital’s west and is home to 184,000 people, has seen considerable land price growth over the last three years.

Good coverage with the capital’s arterial roads, easy access to National Highway 4 and undeveloped space for urban expansion to house an increasing population, have made Por Senchey an attractive district for land investment and speculation in recent years.

According to the just-released VTrust Journal of Real Estate issue, land prices surged by 31 percent annually on average from Q3 2013 to Q3 2016.

The report, however, states that growth has been sluggish throughout 2016 because “overall [the real estate market] has cooled down steadily since late 2015.”

In fact, land prices in the area have decreased by 0.2 percent throughout 2016, however VTrust noted that the slight downtrend was not likely to continue.

“Fortunately, recent housing and plot land subdivision market stimuli practiced by many developers has been seen to bolster the market growth again … thus keeping real estate prices from [developing] negatively,” the report states.

Now that the purchased land will have to be developed, the report states there will only be a slight increase in land prices until 2018.

VTrust’s Hoem Seiha, the author of the report, said in an email to Post Property yesterday that as the general election in 2018 nears, international buyers are hesitant to further invest, which, according to Seiha, could potentially dampen price growth in Por Senchey. Nevertheless, he added: “The price growth will start markedly again by 2019 when the general situations eases [after the election].”