The Epicentrum Walk (Epiwalk) shopping centre (right) and Bakrie Tower stand in Jakarta, Indonesia. Jakarta has become a darling for property investors especially in the high-end and luxury sector, where prices rose significantly in the period.
By Arno Maierbrugger
Gulf Times Correspondent
Bangkok
In an interesting ranking, global property website Lamudi.com, an online real estate platform with involvement of Qatar’s Ooredoo that specialises exclusively on emerging markets, has presented the currently most sought-after cities as per the search behaviour of potential investors on its site over the past six months.
According to the data, Jakarta tops the list as the most sought-after city on the network, followed by Manila, Mexico City, Marrakesh and Dhaka. Jakarta has become a darling for investors especially in the high-end and luxury sector, where prices rose significantly in the period, according to Kian Moini, co-founder and managing director of Lamudi. With regards to Manila, the combination of the country’s strong economic growth and its young population with high work ethics have created a climate where real estate in the premium and high-end sector present strong investment opportunities. Relatively low property prices, paired with a strong rental price development, hold interesting yields for investors. Adding to this is a growing middle class and more multinational firms opening branches in Manila, bringing well-salaried expats with them.
“Cities in Indonesia and the Philippines are one of the world’s emerging property hotspots,” Moini says, adding that this is valid for residential, retail, as well as the office sector.
Third on the list comes Mexico City, where investors – despite still prevailing crime and social issues – would be able to count on “better value for money” than elsewhere in this region, and would also benefit from close proximity to the US.
The Middle East and North Africa emerging property hotspot has been named Marrakech by Lamudi. Low property prices and transaction costs, sustained political stability compared to other countries in the region, as well as favourable economic growth prospects make investments in Marrakech property worthwhile, according to the real estate portal.
Ranked fifth is, interestingly, Dhaka. While Bangladesh’s capital has not really been in the focus of property investors over the past years, it seems that the sector has picked up, and a number of new high-end developments especially in the north of the city have triggered demand and caused prices soaring, some five or six times from 2005, when developers in the most desirable locations of Dhaka started construction.
Other places that Lamudi identified as being the top emerging markets for international house hunters are Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan, Yangon in Southeast Asia, Lagos, Nairobi, Casablanca and Rabat in Africa, and Cali in Colombia, South America.
Lamudi operates in 22 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Middle East, apart from the above at locations such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast or Rwanda, just to name a few. It claims it had more than 200,000 property listing in emerging markets on its portal as of April 2014. It is a start-up funded by one of the world’s largest e-commerce venture capital firms, Germany-based Rocket Internet, which just recently has partnered with Qatar’s mobile phone company Ooredoo to launch Asia Internet Holding, which is now the holding firm for Lamudi and other start-ups.