Kho Sokhom posed for a photo in front of the Eiffel Tower the other day, on a sunny Sunday afternoon. But Sokhom has never been to France. The Cambodian woman was taking smartphone photos with her mother and 6-yearold daughter at Euro Park, a picture-perfect European-style model village inside one of the Cambodian capital’s expanding luxury gated communities, or boreys.
“We can’t go to Europe so that’s why we come here,” she tells dpa. Sokhom, who is 40 and works for a car dealer in Phnom Penh, says she can’t afford to buy a home in Borey Peng Huoth, where Euro Park is located, but would love to move there someday. She’s among many Cambodians who visit Euro Park to snap selfies, pose for wedding photos and catch a glimpse of an upper-class Cambodian lifestyle, which is still out of reach for most citizens of the rapidly developing South-East Asian nation.
“The middle-class Cambodian dream is to own a property in a borey,” says Tom O’Sullivan, chief executive of the website realestate.com.kh. “Once there is a joint income of US$2,000 [per month], a couple can certainly save for a property in a borey, and manage payment terms,” O’Sullivan says. The borey housing market, especially in the last five to 10 years, has been driven by the country’s emerging middle class and urbanisation, he adds.
The median household disposable income in Phnom Penh was about 563 dollars per month in 2017, and most rural households had less to spend — about 326 dollars per month, according to the most recent available government data. Yet Cambodia was the “fastest growing country” in East Asia in 2018 and has sustained about 7-per-cent GDP growth annually since 2011, according to the World Bank.
While the country’s official poverty rate continues to decline, about one in four Cambodians remain “vulnerable to falling back into poverty” when exposed to economic shocks, the World Bank says. No signs of poverty are apparent in Borey Peng Huoth’s Euro Park. Visitors stroll along a manmade waterway past recreations of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the Sydney Opera House, which is still under construction. The model buildings are meant to mirror European architectural styles from various periods, including medieval Germany, Victorian England and the French Renaissance.
The park is shaded by trees — a rarity in the capital — and feels far away from the traffic congestion, noise and litter of Phnom Penh’s main thoroughfares. Chan Ratha, senior corporate affairs manager at the Peng Huoth Group property development company, says Euro Park’s green space and European style — plus the borey’s offers of convenient shopping, proximity to an international private school, sport amenities and security — help draw in new homebuyers. “Residents feel privileged to live in Borey Peng Huoth and to live near Euro Park because of the atmosphere and experience,” Ratha says.
The borey’s Grand Star Platinum project, where Euro Park is situated, has about 8,000 villas housing an average of three people, according to Ratha. Some 90 per cent have been sold and more than 60 per cent are already occupied. Homes inside the borey range in price from one-and two-bedroom apartments starting at about US$45,000, to three-and four-bedroom houses at about US$100,000. Lavish multi-family villas sell for up to a few million dollars, Ratha says. Construction on Euro Park, which will remain open to the public, is expected to be completed by the end of this year, he adds.
According to real estate industry insiders, most borey residents are Cambodians, since they prefer to buy landed property, which foreigners aren’t legally allowed to do in the country. Locals also see European countries and design as aspirational, attractive and of good quality, insiders say.
‘European quality’ and ‘European standards’ are appealing marketing slogans and ideologies,” says O’Sullivan. “If a developer has modelled a house on a European property, a buyer may feel, ‘This is a great house as it’s similar to what I could expect in Europe,’” he says.
According to real estate consultancy Knight Frank Cambodia, the number of housing units in Phnom Penh boreys is expected to grow by about 44 per cent by 2021, with builders adding some 22,500 units to the current 51,000 in the country. Sixty boreys are currently under construction, says Ross Wheble, head of Knight Frank in Cambodia.
Sleh Roza, a 24-year-old receptionist at a private primary school in Phnom Penh, recently visited Euro Park for the second time, joined by her sister and a friend. “It’s kind of rare for you to see a lot of trees in the city,” says Roza, adding that she enjoyed the park’s pretty, peaceful atmosphere. Could she see herself living in a borey someday? “Hopefully.” Her friend, Sus Mary, quips: “Make a wish”. – dpa
