The completed shophouses, worth nearly ten billion VND, located next to Me Linh Street (Da Nang City), used to be the dream of many investors but are now being hung up for rent and used as student accommodation.
Having continuously moved rooms because of the complicated and hot rooms, Nguyen Thu Thao (the character who requested the name change) - a student at Da Nang National University of Education - rented out a room of about 25-30m2 in a commercial townhouse.
The townhouse was rented by a group of students like Nguyen Thu Thao with 4 floors, with a total of 6 rooms with prices ranging from 2.5-3 million VND/month. If they want to reduce costs, many students will invite friends to live together.
Previously, our students moved rooms many times because the rooms were small, stuffy, and there was no quiet space to study. When I saw many townhouses with signs for rent, I also rented a room with a friend for 2.5 million VND/month because it was near the school" - Thu Thao said.
Not only Thu Thao, many other students also choose this rental option to facilitate living and save costs.
Having rented a house here for about a year now, Do Nhat Truong - a student at Duy Tan University, Da Nang - informed that unlike regular boarding houses, this townhouse area is quite airy, convenient for living, and the cost is quite reasonable, so many people come to work and study to rent.
Welcoming the service of renting and selling commercial townhouses, Ms. D.T.C - a real estate broker on Me Linh Street, Da Nang - shared that a 4-storey townhouse with completed furniture and an elevator here has a selling price of about 7-8 billion VND/unit, the rough houses have a peak price of 5 billion VND/unit.
Many homeowners have asked Ms. D.T.C to connect, find tenants, and sell the house. To meet the needs, many townhouses here have been converted into homestays and low-cost accommodation.
"A fully-furnished townhouse with a rental price of 15 million VND/month, a suitable rough house for warehousing is only 5 million VND/month, very cheap" - real estate broker D.T.C offered a rental price for a townhouse.
Talking to Lao Dong, Dr. Tran Xuan Luong - Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute for Real Estate Market Research and Evaluation - said that the commercial townhouse is "paying the price" for the previous hot growth period. Investors flock to the movement, regardless of location, design or actual needs.
Notably, the development of e-commerce has also changed consumer habits, causing physical business space to gradually lose its advantage.
In addition, according to experts, shophouses are facing unclear legal problems. Many investors mistakenly believe that shophouses can be owned for as long as houses, while most of them are only valid for 50 years. High operating costs and no stable cash flow make this type of facility quickly become a burden.
