Global property consultant JLL reports that due to repeated epidemics, economic downturns and high unemployment rate in Macau in 2021, property demand decreased as most of the potential buyers tended to wait and see.

Coupled with the lack of new projects launched for sale, residential transactions were mainly concentrated in the secondary market. The overall residential sales transaction volume shrank significantly. According to the DSEC statistics, a total of 5,970 residential sales transactions were registered in 2021, down 6.6% y-o-y. Presale transactions totaled 467, accounting for only 7.8% of the total residential sales volume, lower than the average levels recorded in the past. The similar phenomenon is expected to continue in the future.

In 2021, a total of 20 projects providing 244 new residential units with a total GFA of about 17,644.83 sqm were issued with pre-sale permits. As of end June 2021, there were a total of 16,655 vacant units in Macau, representing an overall vacancy rate of about 7.0%. The majority of the vacant units were larger size units. The vacancy rate for units with saleable area of 150 sqm or above was 17.2%.

With expatriate workers continuing to leave the Macau labor market, a fall was seen in the rental of residential leasing properties. In 2021, the rental values of high-end and mass-to-medium residential properties fell by 9.5% and 15.5% y-o-y respectively. In terms of asset value, the capital value of high-end and mass-to-medium residential properties fell by 3.4% and 0.8% y-o-y respectively, while yields recorded at 1.6% and 1.5% respectively.

source from: worldpropertyjournal