Sri Lanka notes increase in real estate activity by property buyers and sellers
Sri Lankan property portal LankaPropertyWeb (LPW) has reportedly released a report recently noting that after the turn of the year, there has been an increase in real estate activity by property buyers and sellers.
The company has stated that a comparison between the number of visits to its website during the month of January in 2020 and 2021 showed an increase of 23% while leads generated to advertisers on the site increased by 20%, The Sunday Morning has reported.
LPW has also noted acceleration in visitors by 22% and leads by 20% when comparing December 2020 and January 2021. According to the site, January 2021 saw the highest number of visitors to the site since the start of the pandemic.
This trend has been declared to be industry wide, as another property site, House.lk, has reported a 26% jump in its visits during January in comparison with December 2020. Moreover, House.lk has also reported an all-time high number of visits to the site in January of this year.
With restrictions around Covid-19 easing and confidence returning to the market, property buyers are increasingly positive over closing sales since the start of this year. In fact, the recently published data by LPW revealed that only 8% of its 63,250 advertisers had reduced advertised prices during 2020, with an average reduction of 11%. In some cases, these reductions result from the seller’s urgency to sell and further discounts being offered to buyers when closing a sale, the news report has noted.
Meanwhile, high reductions in commercial property were seen by advertisers who reduced their property prices by 13% in the last year. This is mainly credited to the price fluctuations and the shift to work from home (WFH) policies that many businesses have adopted now.
Commenting on the market, Menavid Realtors Director Naveed Zaveer has been quoted as saying, “There has been an improvement in the property market since December 2020, with inquiries being made. The opening of the Sri Lankan airport on 21 January 2021 to tourists is also a positive step towards revitalising the economy. We stay positive and hopeful that this will create a positive mindset in the minds of the investors, motivating them to invest further in the property market.”
A study on people’s search trends revealed that last year Colombo was ranked as the number one city in rental property searches and was followed by Kandy and Dehiwala that ranked second and third, respectively.
In the 2020 sales property searches, Colombo has ranked number one again, maintaining its 2019 position for the same criteria. Kandy and Negombo were placed second and third, respectively, in the sales property search, while the ranking in land searches has revealed that Kandy, Kurunegala, and Nuwara Eliya were placed first, second, and third, respectively.
Overall, since January 2021, the positive sentiment towards real estate has been rising consistently among sellers and buyers and was especially seen with the number of properties advertised on the site increasing by 54% in January 2021 when compared to January 2020, according to the news report. This is a 21% growth from December last year to this January, bearing evidence to the rising trend of advertising property online.
OSL take:
Sri Lanka’s economic expansion following the challenges faced by the global Covid 19 pandemic, has resulted in an increase in real estate activity in the country. The island’s geographical positioning in the Indian Ocean and the many trade agreements as well as trade concessions enjoyed by the country have made Sri Lanka a business hub in the South Asian region. Foreign businesses/investors could therefore explore opportunities in Sri Lanka’s real estate market since its value keeps increasing.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20210218/Z_4 |