bolueeleh wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2017 9:52 am

vladimir wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 10:56 pm People have been predicting the bubble bursting for nearly 10 years.

Many western economic rules don't apply here.

People buy/rent for different reasons, and causes/ results of supply/demand are less conventional.

but 10 years ago the bubble was different, it was fueled by a variety of different countries and in a variety of industries, also 10 years ago khmers were not as highly geared as the debt ratio now.

Jamie_Lambo wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:04 pm Welcome back Bolueeleh

thanks bro

Duncan wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2017 8:12 am

vladimir wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2017 7:03 am Indeed, something has to go bang in China for the market here to fail. It won't be pretty.

You right but it does not have to be a ''bang ''. Just a small ''pop'' will make a difference and if there is a snowball effect it would effect many people down the line.
It takes many years to build a strong economy in a country but just a short time to bring it down. A apple will fall faster than the time it takes to grow on the tree .
(Duncans law of physics )

yep it dont have to be a bang, just a percentage big enough to be felt, thats why economist called it hot money, coz it is hot so it is always constantly moving.

make money while you can now off the chinks and be prepared for a back up plan to get out

But the other problem is the collateral for the multitude of loans has been pledged many times over. I.e. when someone comes knocking on the door demanding collateral for a failed loan, there is going to be fucking nothing there

Reuters Goes To China, Discovers "Ghost Collateral"

http://www.30mintrader.com/reuters-goes ... ollateral/

Water I don't think will be a problem.

it was when i lived there, and nothing has changed.

frank lee bent wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2017 5:32 pm

Water I don't think will be a problem.

it was when i lived there, and nothing has changed.

Strangely enough - the place is built on water more or less - yes, water's a problem during the daytime. Some days we have little or none depending on how lucky we are. It comes on at night mostly. Fewer power outages than there used to be, but still, at least a couple of times a week. Some areas are worse hit than others.
I don't even want to think about the sewage. Thousands of rooms and apartments have been built in the past 6 months, and tens of thousands of new inhabitants have arrived in town. What could be the problem ? And this is just the beginning.

Only second hand information but heard that the Chinese took a 20 year lease on a bar/restaurant. Prime location.

The Chinese must think they are here to stay!!

What a shame the Khmer couldn't develop the area for future Khmer generations.

Capital the issue l know.

However most Khmer planning on coming to Sihanoukville over the Christmas and New Year are going to learn the 'Inn is full'. No rooms for you!! Chinese enjoying your beaches.
Rooms that last year were $80 a night over the festive season now up to $200.

With most beach bars closing early January its hard to see the area being looked after so they may not be missing out on much Just wait till images of a large construction site along the beach front appear on the net. Even the Chinese may think twice about coming!!!!

Anchor Moy wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2017 6:42 pm

frank lee bent wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2017 5:32 pm

Water I don't think will be a problem.

it was when i lived there, and nothing has changed.

Strangely enough - the place is built on water more or less - yes, water's a problem during the daytime. Some days we have little or none depending on how lucky we are. It comes on at night mostly. Fewer power outages than there used to be, but still, at least a couple of times a week. Some areas are worse hit than others.
I don't even want to think about the sewage. Thousands of rooms and apartments have been built in the past 6 months, and tens of thousands of new inhabitants have arrived in town. What could be the problem ? And this is just the beginning.

I've not seen anyone putting in poo pipes anywhere, I'm pretty sure the whole of Jin Bei is shitting through a four inch drain. Whereas here our shit just goes into the river. \Never had a shortage of mains water, we are quite low down. I think the advantage is this is all new pipes, was nowt here two years ago.

The whole of Sihanoukville is a conflagration of a the gambling "investment" that has created a further set of bubbles, that will inflate/pop at different times. The two I could be farked to talk about at this time of night with my particular opinions on are rental and investment properties.

IMHO, history may prove me wrong as the years come; but it's a case of "a rising tide floats all boats" (i.e. there will be a delayed and less severe rise/fall in related areas of business depending on how related the other bubbles are to the Chinese gambling bubble; as an exmaple it's effecting and will continue to affect Koh Kong, Kampot, Kep, local Khmer businesses, VN/Malaysian/Thai future tourism etc.... ad nauseum)

The most immediate bubble is the property rental that has everyone so pissed off. There's no touristic immediate bubble here. It's a simple factor of the influx of Chinese, for whom the closest definition of "tourist" is someone randomly coming to check SHN out. While the tourism stats show 18.5% net increase, I'd suggest it's probably about even if one is counting only actual holiday makers as tourists. Everyone else is predominantly Chinese investors, workers, organised criminal gangs, the necessary sprinkling of gov't reps from China thrown in to keep an eye on things (I met a North Korean with a Chinese passport a couple weeks ago, fuk knows exactly who and/or what he was!).

I believe comparisons to Pattaya/Phuket are off target.

They were development that were culturally and financially funded predominantly by varying the inputs from first Western, then Russian, then Middle Eastern cultures with Asian investment being more a product than a driver of what happened in those places. This experience was also a both factor and driver of cultural effects of these races.

IMHO it's better to look toward Vietnam or Malaysia (Philippines also, except that it's a difficult beast to assess and geographically/culturally very different) to predict the future economic and cultural directions that SHN will take. Vietnam particularly relevant IMHO, as the primary beachside investments were driven by Korean and Chinese, with a heavy sprinkling of the gambling investment thrown in, and that the Cambodian cultural identity is more in line with VN than Thailand, once again in my opinion.

The key differnce is possibly that VN has a more structured and accountable government structure, particularly at individual level and that VN has a more self-sufficient internal economy resulting from the decades of sanctions that were plied through the 70s and 80s- so that expectations of gambling investment being pulled up and varied for a more legitimate structure will probably take much, much longer than the VN experience. And will likely be driven by Chinese government wanting more accountability (tax: a la why Macau was slowed) rather than Cambodian government looking after their own.

So, after all that diatribe, my first very speculative take-away, is that the rental bubble will burst soon. Assuming that Chinese labor levels will not need to increase from here as new developments commence, just shuffle sideways due to a) a Cams government push to include more exposure for Khmers and b) coming developments will be bigger single entities and resultingly more automated; in which case the current building boom; that has not only heaps of new developments but every TD&H building his house up four levels... will see the current supply/demand imbalance at least meet, but possibly invert. Anyone's guess how long, but I'd say 8-12 months.

That will be lead to the bursting of the residential investment bubble for any properties that are not in the immediate vicinity of casinoes/beaches. Quality properties will remain in high demand for the Chinese investors.

The residential investment bubble (in desirable locations) I'd suggest will hiccup, but not burst as a) it's generally a more committed investment community, b) the tax avoidance for Chinese business men remains in place so their risk aversion is far lower than us guys who get to keep most of our profits, c) Investment bubbles have bigger and more excitable players/followers who tend to keep prices in place even after the signs are dire (see USA recent experience).

The key threat to this forecast (among the many many things that may prove me wrong) is possibly the nature of the current developments. The investment may just keep rolling in despite tourism numbers.

I know the Chinese backed residential towers on sale currently, as an example, are asking for 100% of their already exhorbitant prices, to be paid 6 months before FORECAST completion. In a Chinese company building in Cams who want all their money upfront.... phew.

There's 4 levels of risk here that would cause an end of the bubble if they happened in a couple of major developments- a) that apartments don't complete on time (90%???), that further $ will be required to get it to completion, that a building may be far from spec (discovered at completion or within a year of completion) or even in an extreme case where the building doesn't complete and investors' money is gone! (Happened in Philippines, many many times) The fact of this system of payment being in place makes me wonder if the Chinese developers are expecting a bubble, but I may be over thinking that.

Each of the above scenarios would cause the bubble to at least deflate rapidly.

There are reasons this may all be wrong, also, and that this isn't a bubble but a major revaluation: basically that would require all the ongoing development to need and get employees at rate that increases in line with the level of building (I mean as more apartments are available, there must be much more developments built as current levels of workers are housed, and there are coming more housing available).

For this situation to continue without a bursting of the bubble, it would need to time perfectly its own decline with legitimate tourism increasing at the same rates and times as the building growth declines.

I believe legitimate tourism will come and grow exponentially - but I suspect it will grow much slower and really only become notable 5 or so years after the property bubble shows its first signs of decreasing, and that will be when we know it was a bubble. (There will likely be a new, but different type of bubble going then, a more reliable one).

Of course the later development of a legitimate tourism growth is highly dependent on town infrastructure - the moment that Shnooky powers start actually installing prospective systems (rather than systems that are lagging demand and only instigated by emergency as they do now) is the sign that it's time to jump on board!

Don't make any decisions based on this guesswork, as one may miss a monster bubble becasue of the ramblings of an insomniac trying to sort his own thoughts out by putting them in type! (Or may save themselves significant losses, basically make up your own mind )

You really think Khmer are more culturally aligned with Vietnam than Thailand? Interesting.

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TheFriar wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2017 12:42 am
......Of course the later development of a legitimate tourism growth is highly dependent on town infrastructure - the moment that Shnooky powers start actually installing prospective systems (rather than systems that are lagging demand and only instigated by emergency as they do now) is the sign that it's time to jump on board!......

^this

Chinese companies had a meeting in PP. Topic was takeover of the harbor. Add to that the concession for the PP-SHV highway, takeover of airports, the already described building up of entirely owned Chinese supply lines. The gambling and tourism aspects is comparably minor with what is in the making. Concerns about sewage, energy etc. wont matter too much unless they can make money from it. Local biz guy told me that the Chinese garbage company now demands four times the price Citri had asked for.

Barang chgout wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:59 am You really think Khmer are more culturally aligned with Vietnam than Thailand? Interesting.

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Ya One man's experience is always a very limited generalisation, of course. And I have bias away from Thais, resulting from having encountered countless racist and rude Thai experiences at personal levels with "average" Thais (referring to non-touristic zones), that were exceedingly more common than I encountered negative experiences here or VN.

I actually find very little difference from a cultural perspective between a Khmer and a Viet, the exception being that Cams has a higher level of middle aged peeps who have no education - which creates the generalisation of a very shy culture, however I found VN peeps to be the same outside of HCM, Nha Trang, Hanoi.

The main exception would be North Vietnamese Communist Party Officials; who are markedly less polite than even the average Khmer government official.