What Can a Full Year of Phnom Penh Rental Evidence Actually Show?

This edition has a clear evidence boundary. A public listing dated 24 June 2026 identifies a specific 72 m² condo at Begonia Residence in Sen Sok, says a tenant is in place, and states current rent of $400 a month with approximately $380 a month described as net rental income. The same source gives annual figures of $4,800 gross and about $4,560 net. It does not, however, publish a month-by-month owner statement for the preceding twelve months, so those annual numbers should not be presented as twelve completed receipts already collected.

For this page, the “year” is therefore a 12-month equivalent of the live tenancy disclosed on that date: $400 multiplied by twelve, and roughly $380 multiplied by twelve. That is materially stronger evidence than a developer yield promise or a vacant-unit asking rent because the unit is described as already occupied. It is still weaker than a completed owner cash year because the public record does not tell us when the tenant moved in, whether every payment arrived on time, or whether there were concessions, repair closures or earlier vacancy.

A fully observed year would need exact opening and closing dates and a monthly chronology separating rent due, rent received, arrears, vacancy, owner use and periods when the unit could not be let. None of that chronology is disclosed in the listing. The figures below should therefore be read as a documented current run-rate annualised on unchanged terms, not as proof that exactly the same amount has already passed through the owner's account over twelve consecutive months.

The difference matters even more because the unit is described as having been remodelled in 2026. Renovation by itself does not reveal how long the property was unavailable or when the current tenancy began. If a dated owner ledger becomes available later, the annualised snapshot should be replaced with the observed period and any market vacancy should be separated from time lost to works or personal use.

Only one public case was found that discloses both current rent and a stated post-deduction amount for an already tenanted unit. The asterisk marks a 12-month equivalent of the live cash run-rate as disclosed on 24 June 2026, not twelve bank-reconciled receipts. The seller does not itemise the difference between $400 and approximately $380, so $4,560 must not be treated as a fully reconciled result after every tax, repair and owner expense.

The public case already shows a gap inside the seller's own figures: current rent is stated at $400 a month, while net rental income is described as approximately $380. Annualising both numbers produces a difference of about $240 over twelve months. That is roughly five percent of stated gross rent, yet the source does not say what the $20 monthly deduction represents. Assigning it to property management, building charges, tax or repairs would therefore be speculation.

This small gap illustrates why the word “net” needs a definition before it can support an investment conclusion. Different sellers may deduct different items before using that label. One may remove a management fee, another a building charge, while a third may call the transfer net even though tax, repairs and future tenant turnover still sit outside it. In this case, two disclosed cash points are known — $400 and about $380 — but the bridge between them is not itemised. That is enough to show a real difference and not enough to treat $4,560 as a fully reconciled owner cash result.

A second gap can arise between rent charged and rent actually collected. A tenant in place supports the existence of a live tenancy, but it does not prove the payment status of every earlier month. Late rent remains an account receivable until cash is received; a concession changes the amount due; an early departure changes the number of paid months. The public case discloses none of those events, so this page neither assumes they happened nor silently treats them as zero.

Two other public tenant-in-place listings help show why this distinction matters without pretending they are a sample of the city. A Boeung Tumpun apartment listed in May 2026 stated $350 monthly rental income, while a one-bedroom at Time Square 5 in BKK1 was advertised as currently rented at $600 a month. Those disclosures are more informative than a hypothetical yield because a tenancy exists, but neither source provides a cost reconciliation. They therefore remain market context and do not belong as rows in the main results table.

The core public case supports only a narrow statement about costs: the seller gives current monthly rent of $400 and approximately $380 as net rental income. In the seller's own presentation, roughly $20 a month therefore sits between the headline rent and the stated net amount. The public listing does not explain what is deducted. This page keeps that difference unresolved instead of assigning it to a convenient category.

Owner expenses behave differently, so the distinction affects the calculation. Ongoing unit management, building charges, a new-tenant placement fee, small repairs, bank charges and tax can fall in different months and may be calculated on different bases. A major furniture or appliance replacement can reduce cash in one calendar year without being a normal recurring operating cost. Treating every outflow as a permanent annual percentage would make a repair-heavy year look structurally weak and a repair-free year look artificially strong.

Tax is deliberately not inserted into the case table as a modelled deduction. Cambodia's General Department of Taxation continues to list Tax on Property Rental as an active obligation with a recurring filing cycle, but the owner-specific outcome depends on taxpayer status, the tenant relationship and supporting records. Without those facts, applying a generic rate to $4,800 and calling the remainder this owner's actual result would create false precision.

A security deposit belongs in a different bucket. While it remains refundable under the lease, it is money held against an obligation, not earned rent. If part of a deposit is later retained lawfully for arrears or damage, that should appear as a separate documented event with its reason and amount, not as an extra rental month added retrospectively. The Begonia Residence disclosure does not state a deposit for the tenanted unit, so no deposit is included in either gross or stated net figures.

Cambodian property managers describe proper owner reporting as a combination of rent collection, payment and receipt records, expenses, maintenance and financial reporting. That is the level of detail needed to turn the public $4,800/$4,560 run-rate into a fully reconciled owner cash year. Until that record exists, leaving one category unresolved is more useful than filling the gap with a market estimate and presenting an attractive but unsupported net yield.

The core case is in Sen Sok, so comparing it with an all-Phnom-Penh median or a premium BKK1 unit would be too crude. In early October 2026, Realestate.com.kh showed 625 apartments and condos for rent in Sen Sok, with a median asking rent of $450 a month, a typical range of roughly $301 to $750, and a median around $7 per square metre. The disclosed $400 rent for the 72 m² Begonia unit sits inside that live asking range and below the median. That does not automatically make the lease cheap: fit-out quality, floor, view, furnishing, exact building and lease term can all move the achievable rent.

A narrower check is available within the same development. In April 2026, another two-bedroom at SenSok Town Begonia, around 67.5 m², was advertised at $500 a month with a one-month deposit plus a separate amount for water and electricity. That is useful because the building and size are closer to the core case. But $500 is another owner's asking price, while $400 is the disclosed rent on an occupied unit; the difference is not evidence that the existing landlord is under-renting or losing $100 every month.

The spread becomes wider across other Phnom Penh locations. A tenant-in-place Boeung Tumpun apartment was publicly offered with $350 monthly rental income, while a one-bedroom at Time Square 5 in BKK1 was described as currently rented at $600 a month. At the same time, Realestate.com.kh shows a median asking rent around $450 for Boeung Tumpun apartments and condos and about $1,000 for BKK1. Those figures cannot be averaged into a meaningful “Phnom Penh rent”; they show how quickly price changes with district, building class, size and product.

Knight Frank's Cambodia Real Estate Highlights for H2 2025 remains useful professional background on the condominium market's supply and demand, but live same-area listings are more timely for a current unit-level rent check. Even then, asking prices are only asking prices. They show what landlords are trying to achieve now, not how many months a unit will stay occupied, what concession will be negotiated, or how much cash ultimately reaches the owner.

The restrained market conclusion is therefore that $400 in Sen Sok does not look detached from current visible supply and sits within the area's asking range. That makes the disclosed tenancy plausible as a live market outcome, but it does not turn the $4,800 annualised amount into a forecast for another property. Transferring the result would require a close match on district, bedroom count, size, condition, furnishing, building quality and long-term rental model.

This material shows something that is relatively uncommon in open market data: not a vacant unit with an aspirational asking rent, but an occupied property for which the seller discloses both current rent and a separate stated net amount. From that disclosure, a reader can reproduce a $4,800 gross annual run-rate and approximately $4,560 of stated net rental income and can see that a gap already exists between the two. The $400 rent can also be checked against current Sen Sok asking supply and does not appear detached from the visible market.

The evidence stops there. The public source does not provide twelve dated receipts, the tenancy start date, arrears history, an itemised explanation of the $20 monthly deduction, a deposit ledger, month-by-month repair records or the owner's tax documents. This page therefore does not claim that exactly $4,800 has already been collected over the previous twelve months, and it does not label $4,560 as the final amount after every owner cost and tax. It is the currently disclosed economics of a live tenancy expressed on a 12-month basis.

One property also says nothing about Phnom Penh's average rental return. Even within the same district, another condo may differ in size, floor, condition, furnishing, building quality, management and tenant profile. A neighbouring asking rent can help test whether the number is plausible but cannot replace the lease; a city market report can provide context but cannot replace an owner statement. The weaker the property match, the weaker the basis for transferring this result.

If publication-authorised monthly owner records become available later, the page should become stricter, not simply longer: replace the annualised run-rate with actual receipts, expose vacancy and arrears, separate recurring from one-off costs, keep the deposit outside income, and only then recalculate the result. Until then, the value of this case is that it shows exactly what the public evidence can support and leaves the remaining lines unresolved instead of quietly replacing them with market averages.