According to observations in recent times, the group of state-owned commercial banks have all announced strong increases in lending rates for home purchases to levels equivalent to private joint-stock commercial banks (up to nearly 14-15%/year).
This move is to implement the direction of the State Bank of Vietnam on controlling the credit growth rate for the real estate sector in 2026 not exceeding the general credit growth rate.
In 2025, credit throughout the system grew by more than 19%, with real estate business credit alone increasing by 28%. Real estate credit increased rapidly and accounted for a large proportion of the economy, mainly poured into high-end housing projects, causing many risks for both banks and investors.
Experts continuously warn about liquidity risks, capital flow imbalances and bad debts if credit continues to deviate from phases, interest rates increase and liquidity decrease. Therefore, it is necessary to slow down the momentum of real estate credit growth.
However, the main story of the real estate business group is that they are facing a large and long-term capital gap, and there is still no alternative channel for medium and long-term credit. Therefore, credit restrictions in the coming time will push real estate into a difficult position.
The research group of VCB Securities Company (VCBS) said that 2026 will be a year of differentiation between markets, segments and real estate businesses. In which, the credit environment and interest rates may be major factors affecting the real estate market.
According to VCBS, real estate credit still maintains an upward trend as many projects enter the sales phase and accelerate construction progress, increasing the demand for medium and long-term capital. However, this unit believes that the access to credit capital of the real estate industry will be less favorable than in 2025.
In addition to interest rates, VCBS believes that investors will also face increasing maturity pressure on corporate bonds in the second and fourth quarters of 2026. The ability of businesses to access new capital sources, including bond issuance and credit borrowing, is forecast to continue to be tightened, both in terms of issuance conditions and capital costs. In which, businesses with weak financial capacity, high leverage, and a less liquid project portfolio will face greater refinancing risks.
Speaking about the policy of reducing real estate credit, analysts at SHS Securities Company said that in reality it is very difficult to do it strongly and for a long time. The reason lies in the structure of collateral: most loans of businesses and individuals, whether short or long, are pawned with real estate. Therefore, tightening real estate credit easily turns into tightening credit for the entire system.
Furthermore, the credit segment associated with real estate is still an important contributor to the net profit margin of many banks. Therefore, if the goal is still to maintain high growth, the scenario of real estate credit decreasing deeply and prolongedly usually only occurs when the economy is forced to "brake" due to systemic risks.
In the context that credit expansion room has reached its limit, experts recommend reactivating the corporate bond market.
In 2026, in the context of declining real estate credit, businesses in this industry will have to promote capital mobilization in the bond market to compensate for the capital shortage.
The pressure is multiplied when real estate businesses face great maturity pressure (the amount of corporate bonds maturing in 2026 is more than 200,000 billion VND, of which real estate bonds mature at about more than 121,000 billion VND).
The positive thing is that, according to assessments by some organizations, it is expected that the corporate bond market this year will break through to 1 million billion VND issued. After deducting 200,000 billion VND due, the net new issuance volume still reaches about 800,000 billion VND, compensating for the long-term credit of commercial banks that is decreasing and bank interest rates are increasing.
