Currently, after laws related to the real estate sector such as the Land Law (2024), Housing Law and Real Estate Business Law (2023) officially took effect, the legal framework for the real estate market has become clearer.
However, in reality, there are still many shortcomings, notably the issue of land valuation, a factor that is creating bottlenecks that has caused a series of projects to stall.
According to the reflection of the current situation of rising land prices in the market, it has caused many difficulties for businesses. This not only makes investors worried but also causes many difficulties in controlling input costs.
When input costs increase, businesses are forced to recalculate, even facing a difficult problem in product valuation.
Some businesses said that they continuously update legal regulations and refer to market prices in many localities to calculate investment costs, thereby providing appropriate home prices. However, this is a difficult problem because the reality is that house and land prices are fluctuating every day.
According to data from the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, there are currently more than 150 projects in Ho Chi Minh City that have to stop implementation, of which, up to 60 - 70% of projects are stuck in the land valuation stage to calculate land use fees. There are even projects that have not paid land use fees for decades.
For apartment projects that have been completed alone, about 25,000 apartments have been handed over to customers, but have not been granted pink books, because they cannot pay land use fees.
In many cases, investors have temporarily paid land use fees, or have paid and been granted a partial pink book, but now they are not granted a new one, due to problems, and have to re-determine land use fees.
Recently, concluding a direct and online meeting to listen to reports on the real estate market situation, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha requested the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment to preside over and coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to review regulations on land, especially on administrative procedures and land valuation.
Assign the task to public service units that are qualified to operate consulting on price determination when they cannot choose land price consulting, land access, and transitional regulations to submit to the Government for the Decree to amend and supplement in June 2025.
In addition, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha also requested the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment to urgently complete the construction of a land price database for each plot of land based on the value zone and standard land plot, moving towards applying a single land price, ensuring transparency and fairness, as a basis for implementing real estate tax policies, preventing speculation and price inflation.
With the above drastic and specific instructions, businesses in general as well as real estate businesses in particular are expecting that problems related to regulations and mechanisms related to land valuation and appraisal will soon be resolved.
This also creates an opportunity to revive many projects that have been stalled due to the unknown determination of land prices to fulfill financial obligations.
The business representative also expects that the principles and methods of determining land prices need to be built in the direction of simplifying transparent, concise and easy-to-implement procedures.
