Phnom Penh Households and Condo Demand Evidence

“Phnom Penh population” is not a single interchangeable statistic. The 2019 General Population Census recorded 2,281,951 people for the capital in its total-population series. A separate census table based on normal or regular households recorded 2,189,460 people living in 499,299 households, with an average household size of 4.4. The gap matters because the total population also includes categories outside normal households, such as institutional, homeless, boat and transient populations. A housing-demand argument should not quietly switch between those universes.

CIPS 2024 is different again. It was an inter-censal sample survey carried out in May 2024, with a 3 May reference point, and it produces estimates at capital and provincial level; it is not a full enumeration. Its stated survey population is the general household population, excluding people living in institutions and people who are homeless. For Phnom Penh, the report estimates 2,352,851 people, 565,272 households and an average household size of 4.2. Those figures are much closer in concept to the 2019 regular-household series than to the headline census total.

The CIPS report itself also publishes an official 2019–2024 population comparison. It places the 2019 census total of 2,281,951 beside the 2024 estimate of 2,352,851 and reports average annual growth of 0.6%. That is a legitimate NIS-published indicator, but it should not be repurposed as a household-formation rate: the methods section makes clear that the 2024 survey universe is the general household population. For this page, the 0.6% figure is useful as the agency's own demographic comparison, not as a conversion factor from population growth to condo demand.

The practical solution is to keep the layers separate. Use population only with its stated universe; use household counts and household size when discussing the need for separate housing; and use housing-tenure or market data when discussing how that need is actually met. We also stay at the Phnom Penh capital level instead of building a district trend from changing khan and sangkat structures. That makes the comparisons less dramatic, but far more useful for a property decision.

These figures belong on one page, but not in one equation. Demographic data describe people and households, tenure data describe how households occupy housing, and the market report describes a commercially monitored condominium stock.

CSES 2023 answers a different question from the population survey: how Phnom Penh households occupy their homes. For its Phnom Penh domain, the survey estimates about 570,000 households. Of those, 70.0% lived in a dwelling owned by the household, 25.9% rented, and 4.1% occupied a dwelling they did not own without paying rent. The national rented share in the same table is 4.9%, so renting is clearly much more prominent in the capital than in Cambodia overall.

That 25.9% is not a condominium statistic. It covers rented dwellings of all kinds captured by the household survey—houses, rooms, apartments in different building types and other arrangements. Multiplying 570,000 households by 25.9% would estimate households renting some form of housing under the survey definition; it would not produce the number of condo tenants. Nor does the tenure table reveal rent budgets, preferred districts, lease lengths or the amenities those households are willing to pay for.

The 570,000 CSES estimate should also not be forced to reconcile exactly with the 565,272 households estimated by CIPS 2024. They come from different surveys, reference periods and weighting systems. Their proximity is useful as a scale check: both put the capital's household base in roughly the same broad range. The small numerical difference between them is not evidence of year-to-year household change.

For a rental investor, the tenure figure is therefore a useful starting point, not a demand forecast. It shows that renting is a meaningful part of Phnom Penh's housing system. To assess a specific condo, the next layer must be narrower: achieved rents for comparable units, lease duration, vacancy, tenant profile and competing stock in the same location and price band. Public statistics do not provide one current citywide measure that resolves all of those questions.

Households sit closer to housing demand than headcount does. One hundred additional residents could form twenty-five four-person households, join relatives already living in the city, share rooms, occupy worker accommodation or split across many other arrangements. Even a perfectly measured rise in population therefore tells us little about the number of additional self-contained homes required.

The 2019 census counted 499,299 normal or regular households in Phnom Penh, with an average size of 4.4 people. CIPS 2024 estimates 565,272 households and an average size of 4.2. The published levels differ by 65,973 households, alongside a modest decline in average household size. That is consistent with a larger household base by 2024, but it is not a continuous administrative series: one figure comes from a full census and the other from a sample survey estimate. Converting the subtraction into a precise “new households” growth rate would imply more accuracy than the sources provide.

Smaller households can increase the need for separate dwellings even when population growth is modest. The same number of people spread across more households requires more places to live. That still does not tell us which form of housing will absorb the need. A newly formed household may choose a landed home, a room, a conventional apartment, a shared family arrangement or rental instead of ownership. Purchasing power and product affordability are another necessary layer, but they sit outside the scope of this page.

Migration creates a similar risk of over-conversion. CIPS 2024 collects migration information and publishes broader migration results, but those results do not provide one comparable Phnom Penh measure of migrants forming new independent households. A migrant is a person who has moved, not a newly created household. The comparison table therefore leaves that gap visible instead of substituting a national or general urban percentage: there is no comparable public figure here that can be safely translated into a number of additional Phnom Penh homes.

The data change character once we move from households to condominiums. Knight Frank estimates Phnom Penh's existing condo supply at 63,334 units in H2 2025. Its monitored stock was 9.6% higher than a year earlier, and two completions during the half added 1,770 units. This is a useful measure of market scale, but it is a commercial supply estimate—not a government ownership register and not a count of units simultaneously available for sale or rent.

Dividing 63,334 by 565,272 households would create a neat ratio with no established demand meaning. Condos can be owned by local or foreign investors, occupied by owners, held as multiple units by one buyer, left vacant or traded on the resale market. Most Phnom Penh households also live outside the modern condominium segment. There is no one-to-one mapping between a city household and a unit in the professionally monitored condo stock.

Knight Frank does provide a measure that is closer to current transaction activity. The average sales rate across monitored projects fell to roughly 3–4% in H2 2025, which the report describes as the lowest in recent decades. That is evidence of slow sales in the projects being monitored; it is not a citywide annual transaction rate, a vacancy rate or an occupancy rate. The same report says the Core segment showed some improvement relative to 2024 while Mid-tier, High-end and Prime absorption remained subdued, reinforcing how risky it is to apply one city average to every project. Even a sound sales-rate series answers only one part of the demand question. It does not reveal how many completed units are actually occupied, how often leases renew, or whether investors are holding empty units. A project can sell units through pricing and payment incentives without proving durable end-user or rental demand.

A stronger condo-demand conclusion would require a set of public series that still does not exist in one consistent framework: actual condo transactions, local versus foreign buyer shares, condo-specific vacancy or occupancy, signed long-term leases and comparable absorption by price segment. Until those layers are available, demographics tell us the size and structure of the potential housing base, while market reports tell us about monitored supply and parts of current sales activity. The gap between the two cannot be solved by a population-to-stock ratio.

For an owner-occupier, city demographics are mainly a scale check. Phnom Penh has a large household base, and the official data show a city whose household structure continues to change. Yet the decision to live in one building is driven by much narrower factors: commuting patterns, schools, noise, layout, management quality, surrounding amenities and the availability of close substitutes. A growing city cannot rescue a poorly located or poorly designed unit. Resale adds another layer: the number of comparable units competing in the same building and district can matter more than the city's headline population trend.

For a rental investor, the 25.9% renting share confirms that renting is an important part of Phnom Penh's housing system. It says little about the income of a specific condo until it is paired with achieved rents for comparable units, real vacancy periods, lease duration, tenant profiles and the number of competing units in the same building and district. A city can have many renter households while a particular premium submarket remains oversupplied. In a completed building, operating evidence can be more informative than another citywide statistic: recent signed leases, renewal patterns, actual vacancy between tenants and the number of directly competing units show whether the product is finding users.

An off-plan buyer faces a different timing problem. Today's household count is even less informative about liquidity at handover, when new buildings may enter the market and developers can compete with resale owners through instalment plans, incentives or fresh inventory. The more useful question is how many similar units are likely to complete in the same window and which group of residents or investors would actually choose them.

Demographics are therefore best used as a reality check. They can challenge the sales pitch that “a growing city guarantees a tenant,” but they do not prove the opposite either. The final decision has to move from city to segment, district, building and unit. City statistics cannot substitute for evidence that the product itself has buyers or tenants.