More Sri Lankans are abandoning tradition and leaving home
More Sri Lankans are abandoning tradition and leaving home
… meaning thousands of units are set to crowd the residential market in the coming years
Sri Lankans prefer to invest their income in real estate more than securities, a recent survey conducted by LankaPropertyWeb.com and the Real-Estate Intelligence Unit (RIU) showed.
Around 44.1 percent of respondents selected real estate as their asset class of choice (as per the below pie chart), with 58.3 percent predicting an increase in property values. Although a majority of the respondents currently live in their ancestral homes, 58 percent expressed interest in buying property in the short to medium term, the report stated.
For perspective, 33.9 percent preferred fixed deposits, while 17 percent and 5 percent wanted to plough their money into trusts and stocks, respectively.
More: Is Sri Lanka’s commercial capital ready to welcome overseas investors?
Sixty-four percent of developers who participated in the survey expected a future oversupply in the residential market. The number of units available at the high end of the residential market may top 10,000 by 2020, according to RIU chief executive Roshan Madawala.
Prices of Sri Lanka apartments and houses have increased 42 percent and 41 percent, respectively, over the past four years, according to LankaPropertyWeb.com’s National House Price Index.
“Multifarious factors continue to exert upward pressure on the market,” Madawala said in a statement. “These include demographic and life-style changes, overall optimism on the future of the market, tourism, rising interest from foreign investors and buyers, as well as increasing number of non-resident Sri Lankans (NRSLs) entering the market.”
Read next: Sri Lanka withdraws freehold land offer to Chinese developers
Source: Property Report