According to the latest research from JLL, Yangon’s budding real estate market is expected to show moderate growth in 2016 as the market recovers from the uncertain of last year.
It was fairly quiet in 2015 with market uncertainty halting progress made in the previous years. The market cooled as foreign investors waited to see the results of November’s historic elections. This caused office rents to tumble downward and residential sales in the country came to a standstill, according to The Nation.
Andrew Gulbrandson, JLL Thailand’s head of research and consulting, is responsible for coordinating much of the firm’s ongoing consultancy work in Myanmar. He told the newspaper that this year will likely bring about stabilization in the market as a whole. He added that demand could soon pick up while new project launches are expected to slow after sharp growth.
“Though many challenges remain, we believe the outlook for this dynamic landscape in 2016 to be positive,” Gulbrandson explained to The Nation. “So far the formation of the new government has been smooth, easing concerns over the post-election political uncertainty. Ongoing ambiguity over the structure of the new government that has built up a legislative backlog affecting a number of regulations should be eliminated when the new government is formed.”
Many business activities in Myanmar had been put on hold due to these concerns but they are now set to continue. This will likely help improve demand in Yangon’s real estate market. The city saw a large amount of real-estate activity in the past few years as military rule decreased and the process of liberalization started to take shape. However, uncertainty caused rents to drop last year.
“In addition, a more cautious approach that investors and developers have taken should lead to a decline in future development project launches, allowing the existing supply to be gradually absorbed,” Gulbrandson stated.
