On what level would be best for buying a condo.

Would be interested in Part 4

When we bought our house we paid 9% deposit whilst waiting for the hard title.

ali baba wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 7:53 pm When we bought our house we paid 9% deposit whilst waiting for the hard title.

Did u buy it from developer or private owner ? is very big difference

ceoreg123 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 6:09 pm Would be interested in Part 4

Yes, i actually forgot to finish this post. Thanks for reminder. Part 4 is coming soon.

Private owner who was living there at the time. My only experience with a developer involved a promotion where they stated the price publicly. I'd never waste my time with people who aren't serious about selling and who expect me to take 2 or more hours out of my day to meet with them before they'll state their price.

We bought a house in a borey and paid 40% upfront before it was built in exchange for a ~10% discount. Paying in advance has higher risk so you get a lower price.

Part 4: Contract Signing

As I mentioned previously, I didn't want to pay 30% before having the title in my name. I insisted on a maximum of 10%. The seller went silent for a while. I knew it's a buyer market and wasn't in desperate need of this condo. The agents mentioned a few times that there was another potential buyer, and they continued to update all the ads about this condo.

After two weeks of silence, they made another offer: 10% upfront before signing the contract and then another 10% when the seller could provide proof of having submitted all necessary paperwork to issue a hard title. My lawyer confirmed that this was acceptable. They also stated that I would receive the keys only after the hard title was in my name, meaning after I transferred all the money. This arrangement was completely acceptable to me. We reviewed the contract once again and set a date for signing.

On the agreed date, we all convened (the seller, agents, condo management, my lawyer, and I). My lawyer noted that it was a good sign that the condo management was involved. I transferred 10% to the seller's ABA account, and we all signed the contract papers (the seller, lawyer, witness, and myself). We took some photos and that was it. At this point, I found out that to have the title in my name, they required:

A confirmation letter of my address from Sankat
A confirmation letter of my name written in Khmer by a lawyer or Sankat
A letter stating that I was single from my embassy
A registration form

Finding this out was quite frustrating. There's no embassy for my country in Cambodia, and obtaining a Sankat confirmation letter isn't a trivial task. My apartment rental contract was under the name of the company I work for. If I couldn't provide these documents, it might be viewed as the 'buyer's fault'. I had already started preparing these documents (for instance, I requested my company to change the rental contract from the company's name to mine), but three days later, they informed me that as the developer was involved, they didn't need any of these documents. They only required my name written in Khmer, a copy of my passport, and the developer would provide everything else.

Approximately two weeks later, the agents sent me proof that the seller had started the title transfer process. My lawyer confirmed that everything was in order. We met again, and I transferred another 10% via ABA, signing the transfer paper.

Two months later, they notified me that the hard title in my name was ready and sent me a photo of it. My lawyer verified its validity. We met once more. This time, I didn't want to do the transfer through the ABA app. Is another topic but It baffles me that the app's transfer limit is 100k. Instead, I requested that we go to the nearest ABA branch and perform the transfer there. Luckily, the branch wasn't too busy, and ABA even provided us with a private room. Everything went smoothly - the final signatures, the transfer, shaking hands, taking a photo, and receiving the apartment keys.

To be continued..

Plan to do 1 more post about my experience living there.

P.S. It's been nearly a year since I started living in this apartment, and I still run a price monitoring script for my building. Since I purchased my apartment, I've seen five new ads for the same type of apartment as mine. The lowest price was 10% more than what I paid (though in better condition), while the most expensive was nearly twice my price (much better conditions and top floor). However sales seem to be moving slowly, and the behavior of sellers is also strange. For instance, one seller updated his ad over six months (his price was ~15% higher than mine), and after failing to sell it in that time, he increased it so now he try to sell for 23% more than my price!