Real estate market to boom in next few years

The real estate market is expected to boom in the next few years as land and building are considered as a good hedge against rising inflation.

While the current forecast remains muted for land and properties due to the pandemic, the future residual value will be much higher, Lanka Realty Investments PLC Executive Directors Hisham Jamaldeen and Archie Buckland Warman told shareholders the Annual Report 2020/21 states. “As such, the Company plans to strategically expand our property portfolio across the country while managing the current downturn in the real estate segment’s domestic front and the impact on the real estate owned by the LRI’s leisure sector,” it said.

Furthermore, the Company is revising its current strategy of the real estate segment to purely focus on the low end and high-end real estate market in Sri Lanka. They further said that with the middle-end of the market being fairly saturated, evolving opportunities are opening in the high-end real estate segment. Such developments as the Port City project will create new openings for the Company’s continued success in this market space.

“In addition, the low-end real estate market also has much potential, especially in terms of making housing more affordable through standardisation and the integration of efficient building principles. This is an area which is not yet fully capitalised on in Sri Lanka.”

The recovery in the leisure segment will be slow in the forthcoming year. “We expect room occupancy to improve over the next couple of years and surpass post COVID levels by 2023. This improvement will be propelled by the development of new highways in the country as well as the expansion of the Bandaranaike International Airport being completed by this time, “ the report further added.