Rental prices in Macao went up during the first half of the year, with people paying an average of 7.4 percent more to rent mass-market housing than they were at the end of 2023, TDM reports – citing figures from real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).
Rents for luxury properties rose by a comparatively mild 0.3 percent, according to JLL.
The firm’s general manager for Macao and Zhuhai, Oliver Tong, told TDM that an inflow of non-residents workers was behind the trend. “We are seeing more foreign workers coming back to Macao and that has [had] a very good impact on the leasing market – especially for small and medium units,” he explained.
[See more: Everything you need to know about buying property in Macao]
Data from the Labour Affairs Bureau showed there was an increase of just over 4,100 non-residents workers between the end of December 2023 and May this year.
Official data showed that the average rent per square metre for residential units during the first quarter of this year rose by 2.1 percent year-on-year, reaching a total of 133 patacas. That was just one patacas more than in the fourth quarter of 2023. Data for the second quarter of 2024 has not yet been made public.
According to Tong, the increase in rental rates has not translated into higher property prices. That’s despite the government scrapping all property market cooling measures in April, after consecutive months of falling prices.
Tong said high interest rates and developers’ practice of dropping prices to spur transactions were keeping prices down. He noted that while there had been an upswing in transactions during the second quarter, his firm predicted that investors would remain cautious for the rest of the year and that property prices could fall by another five percent.
