The Rental Market

The rental prices for apartments have increased steadily over the last four years within the expatriate sector and are currently in a range of USD14 - USD16 per square meter. At the moment there are very few suitable apartments above the 200 square meter range and the largest supply being at 125 square meters, generally containing two to three small bedrooms.  

As can be expected with a high immigration rate and the transition between a state run and capitalist economy there has been an increase in crime. Because of this many of the foreign tenants now require a much higher level of security than before.  This has also reduced the number of apartments in the city which qualify for rentable apartments thus greatly reducing the available supply. The basic requirements now include a full time 24 hour a day guard at the apartment building as well as an enclosed area with a fence and underground parking within the building.  This eliminates all of the older buildings which were not constructed with underground garages and do not have fences around them. To date there is only one closed community outside of the city centre that has been completed.

In addition to security, most foreigners will now only live in the centre of the city, close to their colleagues and places of entertainment and work, further reducing available apartments for them to rent. The centre of the city is also running out of available space to build new apartments.  The centre of the city is approximately one square kilometer.

As more and more foreigners come in and Mongolia becomes a less exotic place for people to live, the new tenants are requiring a greater amount of services and amenities to their apartments including, automatic washing machines, 24 hour elevator service, large televisions, maid service, new decorations, on call maintenance services etc…  For Mongolians that are not used to foreign levels of service these needs are very difficult to meet and can be successfully managed only by a professional management company.  These new requirements also limit the number of acceptable apartments, and landlords that are available to foreign tenants.  

The end result of these factors is that there is a severe shortfall of acceptable apartments for the growing population of expatriates living in Mongolia and it is expected that rental prices will reflect this in equilibrium in the marketplace. The expatriates are now depending largely on real estate agents such as Mongolian Properties to assist them in their increasingly complex search for appropriate apartments. Below is a sampling of the apartment rental prices for executive class apartments. 

The range is from USD14-16.7 per square meter however the prices for some of the complexes are based on last year as there has been no new letting of these places.  Of the apartments listed below it should be noted that there is no availability for the star apartments, the star houses, or the Seoul Penthouse.