Sihanoukville Property: The Oversupply You Can See
What is for sale in Sihanoukville and what it actually returns: cheap entry, visible oversupply, an 8.4% headline that lands under 4%.
Quick answer: Sihanoukville is the only Cambodian market where the surplus is visible from the road. Somewhere between 362 and 400 buildings stand unfinished, depending on which official count you use, and the national programme puts the cost of completing them at $1.161 billion. That visible inventory is the best diligence instrument available anywhere in the country.
Most property markets hide their problems in absorption tables. Sihanoukville does not. Drive from the port toward the beaches and the last cycle is standing at the roadside in concrete, unrendered and unglazed. A buyer who learns to read it has an advantage that no other Cambodian market offers.
Two official counts, and why the gap matters
| Source | Count of unfinished buildings |
|---|---|
| National Special Investment Promotion Program | 362 |
| Preah Sihanouk provincial governor | 400 |
| Projects granted incentives under the scheme | 213 |
The 38-building gap between 362 and 400 is not an error. A national programme counts the buildings inside its own scope and eligibility rules; a provincial governor counts what stands in the province. The gap between them is the set of structures nobody has decided what to do with: too far gone for the incentive scheme, too substantial to ignore.
For a buyer, the discrepancy is more useful than a single tidy number would be. It tells you the inventory is large enough that official bodies measure it differently, and it tells you that roughly half the buildings in the national count have already been drawn into a completion programme while the rest have not. When an agent describes the overhang as “being resolved”, ask which of the two numbers they are working from.
The national exposure behind this stock is covered in the warning on unfinished projects.
What $1.16 billion across 362 buildings actually means
The Deputy Prime Minister has put the additional investment required to complete the 362 buildings in the programme at $1.161 billion. Divide it and the average is about $3.2 million per structure.
That average is worth sitting with. It is far more than a cosmetic finishing budget and far less than the cost of the buildings themselves, which is exactly what you would expect of a market where construction stopped at or after topping out: the frames are up, and the fit-out, services, glazing and compliance work are not. It also implies that the completion of this inventory is a capital problem rather than a demolition problem: these are assets waiting for funding, in a country whose banking sector carries an 8.9% non-performing loan ratio.
For an owner in a completed building, that overhang is the ceiling on price. Every one of those structures is potential future supply that arrives without any new land being acquired, and it arrives at a cost basis far below what a new project would need to charge.
How to read a stalled structure
This is the practical skill that Sihanoukville rewards, and it takes an afternoon to learn.
| What you see | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Frame complete, no glazing, no render | Stopped after structure, needs the largest remaining spend |
| Glazing in, no services visible | Stopped late, cheapest category to revive |
| Cranes and hoists removed, site fenced | Contractor demobilised, restart needs remobilisation |
| Vegetation established on upper floors | Idle for years, structural survey mandatory |
| Site occupied by security, materials stored | Someone is still paying to hold it |
| Signage refreshed, sales office open | Genuinely restarting, or being marketed as if it is |
Walk the block around any building you are considering and grade its 4 nearest neighbours on that scale. If three of the four nearest structures are in the first two categories, you are buying next to the market’s future supply. If they are in the last two, the neighbourhood is repairing itself.
No report will give you this. It is the one form of diligence that a visit does better than a spreadsheet, and it is the reason a Sihanoukville purchase should never be made remotely.
Looking at the coast? We will walk the blocks around the specific building, grade the stalled stock next to it, and model the year on the vacancy this market actually produces rather than on an annual average.
Get the coastal walk-throughWhat the beaches cost
| Beach or area | Character | Entry price per sqm |
|---|---|---|
| Sokha Beach | Gated resort, high-end cluster | $1,400 to $2,200 |
| Otres Beach | Boutique, expatriate, dive schools | $1,000 to $1,600 |
| Independence Beach | Legacy towers, casino overhang | $800 to $1,200 |
| Serendipity Beach | Backpacker and mid-rise mix | $700 to $1,000 |
| Victory Hill | Port and industrial workers | $600 to $900 |
| Phnom Penh average, for comparison | Capital city, all districts | About $1,800 |
The spread from $600 to $2,200 inside one small coastal city is wider than the spread across the whole of Phnom Penh, and it is a spread in liquidity as much as in quality. Otres and Sokha have identifiable buyers; Victory Hill’s pricing reflects an absence of them.
Citywide, resale sits at $800 to $1,400 per square metre and new supply at $1,200 to $2,000, with one-bedroom resale from about $35,000 to $65,000. The specific beach with the deepest foreign resale market is covered in Otres Beach, and the capital comparison in Phnom Penh versus Sihanoukville.
What is actually for sale in Sihanoukville, and what does it return?
Entry here is the cheapest on the Cambodian coast and the occupancy is the weakest. A $50,000 one-bedroom letting at $350 a month is 8.4% gross when fully occupied, which is the number that appears in a brochure and not the number that reaches a bank account.
| Line on a $50,000 one-bedroom | Effect |
|---|---|
| Let at $350 a month, fully occupied | $4,200 a year, 8.4% gross |
| Four months vacant, a mid-range assumption | Minus $1,400 |
| Service charge on 50 sqm, payable all twelve months | Minus $900 |
| What remains before tax | $1,900, under 4% net |
Two checks separate the brochure from the cash:
- Ask for the building’s occupancy over the last twelve months, not its asking rents.
- Apply the service charge to all twelve months, including the vacant ones, and add the annual holding costs.
Our analysis of this market is that Sihanoukville is the clearest illustration in Cambodia of why gross yield is the wrong number to shop on. Nothing exotic happens in the worked case above: no defect, no bad tenant, no market shock. Four vacant months and a service charge payable regardless take an 8.4% headline under 4%, and the non-resident withholding of 14% has not yet been applied. The stock is genuinely cheap and the occupancy risk is genuinely high, and both facts have to travel together, resale included.
Why vacancy, not yield, is the number here
Coastal marketing quotes gross yield. Coastal reality is decided by how many months of the year the unit is empty.
| Step | Effect | Running figure |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 one-bedroom let at $350 a month, fully occupied | $4,200 a year | 8.4% gross |
| Four months vacant, a mid-range assumption here | Minus $1,400 | $2,800 |
| Service charge on 50 sqm, payable all twelve months | Minus $900 | $1,900 |
| Net before any management fee | About 3.8% |
The critical line is the third. An 8.4% headline becomes about 3.8% net, and roughly a third of that erosion is a cost that never stops: service charges, sinking fund contributions and utilities standing charges do not pause when the unit is empty, so a vacancy month costs more than the rent it fails to collect. In a market where three to six vacant months a year is a reasonable allowance, that asymmetry is the whole difference between a headline and a return.
This is why the honest Sihanoukville question is not “what does it yield” but “how many months will it let”. Ask the building’s manager how many of the foreign-owned units were occupied last August and last February, and treat a reluctance to answer as the answer.
Yield definitions are in net versus gross yield.
Advantages and disadvantages of buying into a reset market
The advantages are the ones that follow any reset. Entry prices are far below the capital and far below the 2019 peak, the speculative demand that drove the last cycle has gone, and what remains is real occupier and visitor demand at prices that reflect it. The oversupply is visible and therefore priceable, which is a genuine and unusual advantage. The ownership route is unremarkable: an apartment above the ground floor, within the national 70% ceiling measured by private-unit area. And the government’s completion programme, with incentives granted to 213 projects, is a real attempt to work the inventory down rather than let it rot.
The disadvantages are severe and should not be softened. Vacancy is the dominant cost and it is seasonal, so a full year of rent is not available at any price. Resale liquidity is the weakest of any Cambodian market covered here, because the buyer pool is small and everyone in it can see the same unfinished buildings. Construction quality across the last cycle’s stock is uneven. And the overhang caps appreciation for as long as it stands, which on a $1.161 billion funding requirement is not a short period.
Where the coastal money went instead
Kampot and Kep are now widely described as the next coastal investment zones as Sihanoukville’s boom slows on oversupply, with resilient tourism growth expected through 2026 to 2030. Nationally, Cambodia received 5.57 million international arrivals in 2025, down 16.9% from 6.70 million in 2024, with 5.6 to 5.8 million expected for 2026: a national softening on top of a local surplus.
That rotation is a fact about sentiment rather than a recommendation. Kampot and Kep are smaller, thinner markets with less foreign-eligible strata stock, and a buyer moving there for the story rather than the fundamentals is repeating the mistake that produced Sihanoukville’s skyline. Both are covered in Kampot and Kep.
What the rotation does tell a Sihanoukville buyer is that they will not have competition from the momentum crowd, which is generally a good sign for price and a bad sign for a quick exit.
Who should be here, and on what terms
This market suits a buyer with a long horizon, no need for income across the 4 to 6 months a coastal unit can sit empty, and the willingness to visit before purchase. Bought at the right price in a completed building with a funded sinking fund, a Sihanoukville unit is a legitimate contrarian position in a market that is repairing rather than declining.
It does not suit anyone who needs monthly cash flow, anyone buying off-plan without exceptional developer evidence, or anyone buying remotely. The single most reliable way to lose money on this coast is to buy a unit in a building you have not stood in, on a street you have not walked.
The checks this market specifically demands
Grade the neighbouring structures before anything else: that walk decides more than any document. Then ask the building manager for occupancy by month over the past two years rather than an annual figure, and ask the co-owners association for the sinking fund balance and the arrears position, because in a half-occupied building the arrears line tells you whether your neighbours are still paying.
If the purchase is off-plan here, treat it as a different transaction class entirely: ask whether the project is one of the 213 in the incentive programme, ask what additional capital the completion requires, and ask where it is coming from. Confirm the developer lodged its 2% Prakas 047 deposit with the regulator. And price the exit before the entry, because in this market the exit is the constraint.
The developer questions are set out in developer due diligence red flags.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends which official you ask, and the disagreement is informative. The national Special Investment Promotion Program works to a figure of 362 unfinished buildings, while the Preah Sihanouk provincial governor has put the number at 400. Neither is wrong; they are drawn on different boundaries and at different dates.
The Deputy Prime Minister has stated that the 362 buildings in the national programme need an additional $1.161 billion to complete, which averages about $3.2 million per building. Incentives have been granted to 213 projects under the scheme.
Considerably. Resale runs about $800 to $1,400 per square metre and new supply $1,200 to $2,000, against a Phnom Penh average of $1,800. One-bedroom resale starts around $35,000 to $65,000.
Lower than the headline suggests, because vacancy dominates. A unit grossing over 8% on paper can net under 4% once three to six months of annual vacancy and a service charge that runs all twelve months are applied.
Some of it. Kampot and Kep are now widely described as the next coastal investment zones as Sihanoukville's boom slows on oversupply, with resilient tourism growth expected through 2026 to 2030.
Yes, on the standard basis: strata title above the ground floor, inside the cap of 70% of a building's total private-unit area. The ownership rules are national; the risk here is completion and vacancy rather than title.
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