my preferences as Cambodia property investor

  1. Preference — small price tag, to reduce my exposure, commitment, and outbound cash flow.
    1. Preference — slightly bigger exposure than the current unit, since I am optimistic about Phnom Penh
  2. Preference — lower psf price, i.e. buying cheap. This translates to lower risk, higher profit margin, higher flexibility (for sale, rent or mortgage).
  3. Preference — diversify rather than buying multiple units in the same building.
  4. Preference — shops rather than office or home. Shops are precious, unlikely to suffer from over-supply. Likely to generate higher rental yield (no direct benefit over 10Y) giving it higher valuation than non-shops. However, the shop units available are expensive by psf or by price tag, so I may have to let go.
  5. Preference — guaranteed rental. I can hopefully forget about the whole thing for 10Y, if I require no mortgage. Perhaps I need to seriously reconsider this preference.
  6. Preference — avoid mortgage with high interest and all the overheads. May need to be flexible with this preference.
  7. Preference (minor) — water point. Possibly faster capital appreciation.
  8. Preference (minor) — avoid changing SGD to USD despite my surplus SGD now, because USD is expensive at present.
  9. Preference (minor) — lower floor but Floor 3 vs 4 makes little difference.

There’s a 90% chance I would start earning USD salary in early 2017. Hopefully I could save up enough to pay at TOP time.

  • Choice —  Add an 14.99 unit, and hope to sell one of the two before TOP.
    • Need to plan for Scenario B:  unable to sell at a profit. A 140k new commitment would be too heavy and basically beyond my means. So my conservative answer is No. Or take mortgage.
  • Choice — The transfer unit is only slightly less heavy and comes with no discount, so my answer is a bigger NONO. Also the original price of $105,730 ($9800/sqm) was already overpriced relative to my unit.
  • Choice — Upgrade (i.e. sell #3-163 buy a 14.99 sqm) is a new proposition under consideration, but I lose the water point advantage. Who knows my water point unit might exceed the 14.99 sqm unit valuation in x years and I might regret. More importantly, my #3-163 unit was bought at a lower psf price of $8k/sqm, compared to $9380/sqm for the 14.99 sqm unit, so I feel it’s questionable to sell it at this early stage to buy a more expensive unit. I’d like to see some trend in appreciation (if any) before I decide.