Study finds 204 towers under development in Panama City

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(blogs.iht.com) In Panama City, the number of residential towers under construction or in pre-construction doubled in 2007, even though sales to Americans have “slowed down somewhat,” according to a new report from CB Richard Ellis.

Although some reports place the number of towers in the planning stages at more than 300, CBRE’s report found 204 residential buildings under construction or in pre-sales, representing 21,710 units. However, it’s worth noting that only 9,875 of those units are actually under construction, which shows that “not all the projects have achieved the minimum presales required to start construction,” the report notes.

CBRE found the average sale price of a “Class A” apartment rose 12 percent in 2007, to $2,180 per square meter, but that was small bump compared to the 50 percent annual jumps of the previous two years. Top-end apartments, however, are hitting $4,800 a square meter, the report found.
 

Despite the “unprecedented construction activity,” CBRE says the absorption rate for apartments hovers around 73 percent, a figure that provoked a bit of skepticism from Sam Taliaferro, author of the Panama Investor Blog.
 

“I question how they were able to discover the absorption rate for sales as this information is not publicly available,” he wrote in his blog. “Where would you find the data to support sales that have yet to close? You can’t really trust the developers to tell you how sales are really going.”

Nevertheless, he labeled the report “a good read” that gave him a “warm fuzzy feeling for just a little while.”