{"id":111781,"date":"2021-02-17T16:08:15","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T23:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=111781"},"modified":"2021-02-17T16:08:15","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T23:08:15","slug":"the-sri-lankan-real-estate-industry-is-on-a-roll-property-buyers-are-flocking-back-to-the-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/02\/17\/the-sri-lankan-real-estate-industry-is-on-a-roll-property-buyers-are-flocking-back-to-the-market\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sri Lankan Real Estate Industry is on a Roll: Property Buyers are Flocking Back to the Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lanka Property Web (Pvt) Ltd<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Since the turn of the year there has been an increase in\nreal estate activity by property buyers and sellers\u201d, said Sri Lanka\u2019s leading\nproperty portal LankaPropertyWeb. The company stated that a comparison between\nthe number of visits to lankapropertyweb.com during the month of January in\n2020 and 2021, showed an increase of 23% while leads generated to advertisers\non the site increased by 20%. LankaPropertyWeb (LPW) also saw an acceleration\nin visitors by 22% and leads by 20% when compared with December 2020 and\nJanuary 2021. According to the site, January 2021 saw the highest number of\nvisitors to the site since the start of the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This trend seems industry wide as another property site,\nhouse.lk reported a 26% jump in its visits during January in comparison with\nDecember 2020. House.lk also reported an all-time high number of visits to the\nsite in January of this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With restrictions around COVID-19 easing and confidence\nreturning to the market, property buyers are increasingly positive over closing\nsales since the start of this year. In fact, the recently published data by\nLankaPropertyWeb revealed that only 8% of its 63,250\nadvertisers had reduced advertised prices during 2020, with an average\nreduction of 11%. In some cases, these reductions result from the seller’s\nurgency to sell and further discounts being offered to buyers when closing a\nsale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

88% of property advertisers did not change their initial\nadvertised price, while 4% of the advertisers increased their initial tagged\nprice by 12%. This shows that despite the pandemic, the real estate market in\nSri Lanka has remained stable last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, high reductions in commercial property were seen\nby advertisers who reduced their property prices by 13% in the last year. This\nis mainly credited to the price fluctuations and the shift to working from home\npolicies that many businesses have adopted now. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commenting on the market, Naveed Zaveer, Director at Menavid\nRealtors said, There has been an improvement in the property market since December\n2020, with inquiries being made. The opening of the Sri Lankan airport on\nthe 21st<\/sup> of January 2021 to tourists is also a positive step towards\nrevitalizing the economy. We stay positive and hopeful that this will create a\npositive mindset in the minds of the investors, motivating them to invest\nfurther in the property market\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study on people’s search trends revealed that last year\nColombo ranked as the No.1 city in rental property searches. This was followed\nby Kandy and Dehiwala that ranked 2nd and 3rd, respectively. While in 2019,\nColombo ranked 1st, Dehiwala ranked 2nd, Nugegoda was 3rd and Kandy was in the\n4th place in rental searches ranking. This shows that metropolitan areas are\nyet in demand in renting, irrespective of the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2020 sales property searches, Colombo ranked number 1\nagain, maintaining its 2019 position for the same criteria. Kandy and Negombo\nplaced 2nd and 3rd respectively in the sales property search. While the ranking\nin land searches revealed that Kandy, Kurunegala and Nuwara Eliya placed 1st,\n2nd and 3rd respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, since January 2021, the positive sentiment towards\nreal estate has been rising consistently among sellers and buyers. This was\nespecially seen with the number of properties advertised on the site increasing\nby 54% in January 2021 when compared to January 2020. This is a 21% growth from\nlast year\u2019s December to this January, bearing evidence to the rising trend of\nadvertising property online.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was also a hike in land\n<\/a>searches amounting to 55.8% in January 2021, when compared to last\nyear\u2019s January. This shows an increasing trend of people shifting to searching\nproperty online versus traditional methods. It is a significant improvement\nconsidering that January 2020 saw very little restrictions and impact because\nof COVID-19 when compared to the last month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the company, based on the feedback they have\nreceived from agents and property sellers, the market is seeing a significantly\nhigher number of sales being closed since last month. Therefore, it stated that\nthis would be the ideal time for buyers to finalise their sales and take\nadvantage of the lower prices before they increase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Property seen as a stable\ninvestment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, property has been known to be a stable\nlong-term investment. According to LankaPropertyWeb\u2019s market report, during\nthis period it has specifically increased investor confidence when compared\nwith other investment options that have been generating low returns or seen as\nvolatile. Sri Lanka Overall House Sale price<\/a> has grown\nby 91% in the last 5 years, and 20% when compared to Q4 2019 and Q4 2020. While\nthe Weighted Average New Fixed Deposit Rates of Commercial Banks in December\n2020 were at 5.07%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Housing loans at 7%,\nthe lowest in a decade <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower home loan rates could be attributed as another factor\nfor the buoyancy of the market. Taking a loan now for Rs. 5 Mn for 5 years\nwould save you an interest payment of about Rs. 0.4 Mn when compared to last\nyear’s January. You would also be saving about Rs. 0.6 Mn when compared to\nJanuary 2019. This is because of the low interest rates offered in a decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With many banks extending housing loans<\/a> from 7%, according to the\ngovernment\u2019s directive, home buyers have shown a keen interest to take\nadvantage of the current low rates. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lanka Property Web (Pvt) Ltd Since the turn of the year there has been an increase in real estate activity by property buyers and sellers\u201d, said Sri Lanka\u2019s leading property portal LankaPropertyWeb. The company stated that a comparison between the number of visits to lankapropertyweb.com during the month of January in 2020 and 2021, showed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}