Real estate market showing signs of recovery

The real estate market in HCMC and neighboring provinces gradually enjoy new trades after a long nearly freezing period. This positive sign is thanks to a series of policies to address current issues for this market.


Certain promising real estate projects in Ho Chi Minh City have recently welcomed new customers. Deputy General Director Doan Thanh Ngoc of PropertyX Co. informed that his company is selling 2,000 apartments in Avatar project (sited in Thu Duc City). At present, tens of apartments are reserved each day. Its project in Hoc Mon District is also attracting much interest from potential house buyers.

Deputy General Director in charge of marketing and trading of DKRA Corp. Tran Hieu summarized real estate trading activities of certain projects in HCMC for the last 10 days that customers do show their true interest in land lot and house purchasing, with many successful transactions being made like those in The Classia Khang Dien project (in Thu Duc City), De La Sol project of CapitaLand (in District 4), The Maq project of Hongkong Land (in District 1).

However, he added that house buyers are extremely cautious and only trust any projects with clear legal status, prestigious investors, or having completed their raw construction and offering flexible payment methods.

The real estate markets in neighboring provinces of HCMC also see positive signs. General Director Le Tien Vu of Cat Tuong Land Co. shared that his company has successfully sold many houses in Taka Garden Riverside Homes project (sited in Tan An City of Long An Province), Cat Tuong Western Peal urban area (in Vi Thanh City of Hau Giang Province), Cat Tuong Phu Huong urban complex (in Dong Xoai City of Binh Phuoc Province).

In Dong Nai Province, General Director Nguyen Van Hau of Asean Holding stated that his company is offering land lots at the price of under VND1 billion (US$42,650) each. They have attracted much interest from the public, especially those preferring to invest in safe real estate. It seems that increasingly long payment periods mean more attraction to land buyers.

Director of the HCMC Department of Construction Tran Hoang Quan informed that in the first quarter of 2023, many accommodation projects in the city are eligible for launching in the market – with nearly 7,800 apartments (a five-time rise compared to this time last year).

Nevertheless, the goal of building 50 million square meters of housing floor in the 2021-2025 period seems impossible to achieve. In the first two years of this time, only 13.5 million square meters were constructed, which means 12.2. million square meters to be built in each year of the next three years. Yet the figure for this first quarter is only 2.3 million square meters.

In addition, there are now over 150 real estates in the city whose legal issues are waiting for solutions. Therefore, the municipal Construction Department proposed HCMC People’s Committee to categorize those issues and assign corresponding state departments or agencies to address. The Construction Department will be in charge of 8 projects.

From a business perspective, solving law-related problems is a critical matter to unfreeze temporarily halted real estate projects. it is expected that newly introduced policies are able to untangle overlapping issues efficiently.

Legal problems in real estate projects also negatively affect social housing projects. Even though the newly introduced credit package of VND120 trillion ($5.12 billion) comes as good news to both businesses and house buyers of social housing projects, the supply now is so limited due to law-related issues that not many apartments can be launched in the market. The disbursement of that package, therefore, seems like just a dream.

General Director Tran Khanh Quang of Viet An Hoa Real Estate Investment Co. reported that lately, the quantity of land lots and houses in provinces has considerably dropped. Particularly, those of secondary investors saw a price drop of 30-40 percent to cut loss owing to pressure of bank loans. However, some projects in HCMC are still offered for sale at a high price, which is rather discouraging to buyers, who are still waiting for the price to reduce further.

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