Will People Continue to Buy Borey Properties in 10 Years?

• 2 April 2018
• Local News
• 4003 Views

In Cambodia, boreys have become the most popular property among the local buyers over the past decade. More and more boreys have come onto the market in response to the high demand and more Cambodians are moving from old style shop houses in the city centre to boreys. According to a survey conducted by Key Real Estate Co., Ltd., there were a total of 104 borey projects in Phnom Penh in 2017.

However, will this trend continue in the future? Will people still be buying borey properties in the next 10 or 20 years? Or will boreys still be being built in the future?

“If you’re asking whether boreys will still exist, for sure they will still exist. However, if you ask whether or not people will continue to buy boreys, I can say yes and no, depending the borey itself,” said Mr Hun Chansan, founder of Re-Edge Architecture + Design, and winner of the Real Estate Personality of the Year Award at the PropertyGuru 3rd Cambodia Property Awards.

“If boreys are updated to meet the demands and requirements of the next generation of buyers, people will continue buying them. But if not, they won’t. But, what should the update be?” he added.

According to Mr Hun Chansan, contemporary boreys are like wholesale factory products where everyone buys the same product with the same design.

“Most boreys in Cambodia nowadays are designed based on Feng Shui, rather than creativity and modern architectural perspective. As you can see, almost every borey is the same, and almost every houses in each borey is also the same. I can say that we are not putting much art inside boreys at the moment,” he explained.

“This might be a factor as to why people might stop buying borey properties in the future. Do you expect that the new generation will live in something the same and plain like this?” he asked.

“Therefore, in my opinion, developers have to adjust themselves a bit to meet the demands of the future buyers. If people don’t like something the same, why don’t you do the custom-made borey? In this case, I guess, the future of Borey will never end,” he concluded.

• Analysis
• Urbanization and Architect