NovAsia

The Building Is Complete but Barely Occupied: Why Sold Apartments Do Not Mean a Working Condominium

NovAsia · updated July 25, 2026

Prepared by the NovAsia Editorial Team

The phrase “the building has been completed” creates an impression that the project has entered a calm and predictable stage. Construction is finished, keys are being issued, the pool is filled and security is visible in the lobby. A buyer may assume that the building will now operate like any established condominium: owners will move in, investors will find tenants and monthly service charges will fund the property.

In reality, several years can pass between construction completion and a stable, lived-in building.

A tower with 600 apartments may have 500 units sold, 420 fully paid, 350 handed over, 180 furnished, 90 rented and only 60 occupied on a normal night. The sales office can truthfully refer to a high sales rate, management can accurately report the number of keys issued, and a prospective tenant can still see a dark façade and dozens of identical listings.

All of those statements may be correct because they describe different stages.

For an owner, physical completion is only part of the picture. The more important question is whether a functioning system has emerged: one capable of paying for staff, lifts, pumps, backup power, fire safety, cleaning and future repairs without permanent financial support from the developer.

Sold, paid, handed over and occupied are different measures

Project reporting often mixes several categories.

Sold unit. A sale contract has been signed. This does not necessarily mean the price has been paid in full, possession has been transferred or the transaction cannot later be cancelled.

Completed unit. The apartment has been constructed and is ready for inspection, snagging or formal acceptance.

Handed-over unit. The buyer has been invited to take possession or keys have been issued under the project procedure.

Occupied unit. An owner or tenant actually lives in the apartment.

Paying unit. The account linked to the unit regularly pays service charges and other building obligations.

An apartment can be sold and completed but not handed over because instalments remain outstanding. Another may have been handed over but remain empty and unfurnished. A third may be occupied by a tenant while the owner disputes the management charges.

The question “how many units are sold?” therefore says little about daily operation. A more useful request asks for at least five figures:

When only one percentage is supplied, the other stages should be requested separately.

The building incurs almost its full operating structure from opening

A condominium cannot safely scale every service in direct proportion to the number of residents. From the time it opens, it generally needs:

Some costs do vary with use. Water consumption may be lower, cleaning may be less frequent and finishes may wear more slowly in an empty property. A significant share of expenditure is nevertheless fixed or has a high minimum level.

A fire pump cannot safely be commissioned only after most units are occupied. A lift-maintenance contract has a base cost. Engineers and security staff require salaries regardless of delivery volumes and visitor numbers.

A low-occupancy building therefore faces a simple financial tension: the expense structure is already substantial, but the regular payment base may still be small or poorly disciplined.

Strong sales can coexist with weak occupancy

An investor may buy without intending to live in or immediately rent the unit. Empty apartments may result from:

A building may therefore contain many owners but few residents. This is particularly visible in projects sold heavily through international investment channels. Owners live in different countries, rarely attend meetings and may take months to answer management.

The important factor is not the owner's nationality but behaviour: whether service charges are paid, the apartment is accepted and furnished, the unit is placed on the rental market and the owner participates in building governance.

A new building has a normal settling-in period

Low occupancy shortly after handover does not automatically indicate a failed project. Buyers need time to:

Large projects hand over hundreds of units in phases. Early residents will inevitably experience furniture deliveries, neighbouring fit-outs and frequent contractor access.

A normal transition differs from chronic emptiness through positive movement:

When those indicators remain unchanged for a prolonged period, the explanation that the building is “newly completed” becomes less persuasive.

There is no universal sustainable-occupancy percentage

Claims that a condominium becomes viable at 60%, 70% or 80% occupancy are too simplistic.

A 100-unit building with one lift and few amenities has a different cost structure from an 800-unit tower with several pools, a large podium, residents' club and extensive round-the-clock staffing.

Sustainability depends on:

A more useful metric is the operating-cost coverage ratio:

recurring income actually collected ÷ actual operating expenditure

If the building collects US$100,000 a year but spends US$140,000, the US$40,000 gap must be funded by the developer, reserves, a special assessment or service reductions.

A half-occupied building can be sustainable when charges are realistic and owners pay. A highly occupied building can remain underfunded if collection is weak or the amenities are too expensive.

A fully sold project may still collect poorly

Transferring every apartment to private owners spreads ownership but does not guarantee that those owners meet their financial obligations.

Cambodia's Sub-Decree No. 126 and its model internal regulations are based on co-owners contributing to the cost of maintaining and repairing common property, usually in line with their registered shares. The practical difficulty is collecting arrears.

EuroCham Cambodia has highlighted service-charge collection problems and the risk that underfunding leads to economies on less visible but critical systems such as fire equipment, pumps, alarms and lifts.

A buyer should therefore distinguish amounts billed from cash collected. A US$200,000 budget issued to owners does not put US$200,000 in the bank.

Request:

A building may look well maintained today because an initial cash reserve remains. The investment question is whether the same standard can be funded in several years.

Developer subsidy is useful only when it is transparent

Developers often support the building during the early years. They may pay staff, electricity, the management office, landscaping, defect teams or the overall operating shortfall.

This assistance can make the settlement period smoother, but it can also conceal the true operating cost.

A service charge may be set at an attractive introductory level. When developer support ends, actual expenditure may be 30–50% higher. Owners may then have to:

Before buying in a completed building, determine:

Free support is an advantage only when its duration and the budget after withdrawal are understood.

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Cost reduction should not compromise critical safety

Management may sensibly reduce variable costs in a lightly occupied property. It may operate fewer lifts, shorten pool hours, clean less often, close a sauna or children's room, reduce reception coverage or switch off decorative lighting.

That may be reasonable during transition, although the buyer should recognise that the delivered service is below the full marketing promise.

The serious risk begins when savings affect lift maintenance, fire pumps, the generator, waterproofing, alarms or other critical systems. These deficiencies can remain invisible for months while increasing technical, insurance and liability exposure.

A temporarily closed leisure amenity should therefore be distinguished from a safety system that is not being maintained.

Empty units do not create a neighbourhood

A functioning condominium is more than lifts and a pool. Residents create demand for shops, cafés, laundries, cleaners, deliveries, pharmacies, transport and maintenance services.

In an empty complex, the retail podium may never reach sufficient footfall. Promised shops may remain closed or open briefly and fail. For tenants, that reduces convenience and willingness to renew. For owners, it affects rent and vacancy.

A building in an established central neighbourhood is less dependent on internal retail. A large peripheral development whose everyday services are expected to emerge within the project depends much more heavily on real occupancy.

Emptiness also affects perception. A tenant notices evening lights, activity in the lobby, whether amenities are open, whether it feels safe to return late, how much fit-out noise remains and how many identical units are available.

Some residents prefer quiet. Quiet combined with weak services and closed facilities generally requires a lower rent.

Different types of occupation create different outcomes

It is useful to distinguish:

For the budget, the critical issue is whether the owner pays regardless of use. For the atmosphere, permanent residents matter. For an investor, sustainable long-term tenant demand and renewals matter.

A single occupancy percentage cannot answer all three questions.

Estimating real occupancy without official statistics

Management may not publish an exact figure, but several observations can build a reasonable picture.

Evening façade

Visit on a normal weekday between about 7 pm and 9 pm. Curtains, unit orientation and people using only one room make this an imperfect measure.

Parking and lobby use

Parking occupancy, morning and evening footfall, lift queues and reception activity indicate everyday use. Some residents rely on motorcycles or ride-hailing rather than cars.

Deliveries and parcels

Courier traffic and parcel shelves provide a practical signal of lived-in apartments.

Resource consumption

Management may be able to provide aggregate water or electricity consumption without revealing personal information.

Listings

A large number of similar rental listings suggests significant investment stock, although the same unit may be duplicated by several agents.

Fit-out work

Regular furniture deliveries and contractor access can show that handover and occupation are still progressing.

Commercial premises

Operating shops inside the project suggest either a sufficient resident base or strong outside demand.

None of these signals is exact. Agreement between several of them is more useful than any one observation.

Information to request from management

For a completed building, seek aggregate information on:

Personal details of individual owners are unnecessary. The purpose is to understand whether cash flow matches the scale of the property. Refusal to provide even aggregate collection and deficit information means the buyer is accepting an opaque operating risk.

Direction of change matters more than one day's emptiness

Weak occupancy may depress resale value. A buyer sees a dark building, many listings and soft rent and demands a discount.

Early purchase can sometimes create opportunity. If the district develops, management improves, units fill and uncertainty falls, value may rise.

The difference between opportunity and trap lies in the direction of travel:

A building with a measurable positive trajectory is different from one that remains equally empty five years after completion.

Simplified break-even example

Assume a building contains 400 equal units and each is charged US$100 a month.

The full annual billing is US$480,000. Actual annual operating expenditure is US$360,000.

If 90% of units pay, the building collects about US$432,000. That leaves room after routine expenses for reserves and unexpected work.

If only 60% pay, receipts fall to US$288,000 and the deficit is US$72,000. A developer may cover the gap temporarily. Once support stops, the service charge would need to rise to about US$125 for the same paying base, or costs would need to be cut.

This is a simplified illustration. Real buildings have different unit sizes, additional income and taxes. It still demonstrates the central point: operational sustainability depends on cash actually collected, not the sales percentage.

When low occupancy may be acceptable

A lightly occupied project may still be reasonable when:

The project then carries transition risk rather than necessarily a structural weakness.

When emptiness becomes a warning

Risk is much higher when several of the following apply:

At that stage, low occupancy is no longer a temporary inconvenience. It is part of the investment risk.

Conclusion

Sold, completed, paid, handed over, occupied and regularly paying units describe different states.

Once a building opens, it carries most of its fixed operating costs. Stable cash flow arises only when owners pay, apartments gradually fill and management is transparent.

Low occupancy during the first months may be normal. Chronic emptiness without improving collection, resident activity or rental demand is not.

A strong completed project can explain more than its sales rate. It can show how many units are handed over and occupied, who funds any deficit, which amenities operate and how the building will finance itself after the developer's support ends.

This article is for general information and is not investment, legal or technical advice. Occupancy, collection, subsidy, budgets and system condition should be checked for the specific condominium at the time of the transaction.

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Sources

  1. Knight Frank Cambodia — Cambodia real-estate market review for the second half of 2025.
  2. Royal Government of Cambodia — Sub-Decree No. 126 on the Management and Use of Co-Owned Buildings, 12 August 2009.
  3. EuroCham Cambodia — advocacy materials concerning service-charge collection in co-owned buildings.
  4. Royal Government of Cambodia — model internal regulations attached to Sub-Decree No. 126.
  5. RICS — Property Agency and Management Principles, effective 1 January 2025, used as comparative professional guidance.

Frequently asked

Can a fully sold condominium still remain almost empty?

Yes. Owners may not have accepted the keys, furnished the unit or moved in, or may hold apartments for resale or occasional use. Sales and actual occupation are different indicators.

Why can low occupancy be risky for an owner?

The building already carries most of its fixed operating costs but may collect fewer regular payments, develop services more slowly and face weaker rental demand.

Does a quiet building always indicate a financial problem?

No. A new project may be passing through a normal settling-in period. The important questions are whether the budget is funded, critical systems are maintained and occupation is increasing.

How can a buyer estimate occupancy without official statistics?

Useful signals include evening observations, parking use, lobby activity, functioning amenities, active listings, deliveries, fit-out work and aggregate information from building management.

When does a condominium become operationally sustainable?

There is no universal occupancy percentage. Sustainability begins when collected recurring income covers the realistic operating budget, critical systems are maintained and reserves are not used to fund routine expenses.

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