Efforts to increase the supply of social housing
According to a report by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction, in 2025 alone, the city completed 14 social housing projects, with a scale of 12,799 units, reaching 98.2% of the 2025 plan. To prepare for the source of completed social housing in the period 2026 - 2027, the city is also promoting 58 projects, with a total scale of 43,500 units, of which 11 projects have construction permits, are under construction or are preparing for construction, with a scale of 12,000 units.
In addition, there are 47 projects that have had investment policy approvals (currently carrying out procedures for approving 1/500 planning, land allocation, agreements on connection of waste discharge, connection of transportation, connection of drainage, fire prevention and fighting design, construction permits), with a scale of about 31,500 units. According to Mr. Pham Minh Man - Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction, the Department of Construction will focus on promoting investors of these projects to complete legal procedures to the construction permit issuance step, ensuring sufficient conditions for commencement and construction in the first quarter of 2026, creating a source to complete the target in 2026 of 28,500 units and for the following years.
In order to strive to achieve the social housing development target assigned by the Prime Minister of nearly 200,000 units by 2030, representatives of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction said that in addition to legal clearance and creating land funds, Ho Chi Minh City offers many solutions to "tighten" slow-progressing projects to accelerate implementation and increase the supply of social housing.
For commercial housing projects that have land funds allocated for social housing development but are slow to implement social housing, the Department of Construction will not consider resolving procedures for notifying that housing formed in the future is eligible for sale or lease-purchase for commercial housing projects, when the investor has not implemented social housing investment in the project.
For projects that have expired the implementation schedule according to the investment policy approval document but the investor has not completed the procedures to be licensed to build social housing in the project, the competent authority does not consider extending the implementation schedule, and at the same time consider terminating project operations, recovering land funds and social housing projects. At the same time, consider handling administrative violations for acts of slow project implementation in accordance with the law.
For projects that have not completed the implementation schedule according to the investment policy approval document, if they do not complete legal procedures to start construction immediately in the first quarter of 2026, the remaining project implementation time is not enough to complete construction according to the schedule specified in the investment policy approval document, the Department of Construction will propose to the City People's Committee to recover the project and land fund.
Proposing flexible social housing obligations in commercial projects
The sanctions issued by Ho Chi Minh City are facing many feedbacks from real estate businesses, especially in the context that the mechanism for implementing social housing obligations has undergone fundamental changes according to new legal regulations. According to current regulations, investors have three forms of implementing social housing obligations, including allocating land funds in the project, allocating land funds at other locations or paying money equivalent to the value of the land fund to be reserved.
The 2023 Housing Law and the 2024 Land Law, effective from January 1, 2025, no longer require all commercial housing projects to allocate 20% of the on-site land fund to build social housing. Instead, the allocation of land funds for social housing development is assigned to the provincial People's Committee to decide right from the stage of urban planning preparation and approval, which can be implemented in projects, in adjacent areas or in concentrated social housing areas.
From the reality of implementing commercial housing projects, many businesses believe that forcing the construction of social housing interspersed in high-end, large-scale commercial housing projects has revealed many inadequacies. Among them, the most concerning thing now is the story of the selling price of social housing, especially in the context of the newly issued land price list. In many areas in the city center, land prices have increased sharply according to the newly announced land price list. This reality makes the development of local social housing difficult to be feasible, especially in large-scale, centrally located projects because product costs will far exceed the affordability of low-income people.
Dr. Do Thi Loan, former Standing Vice Chairman cum General Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, proposed that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee allow investors to flexibly choose the form of fulfilling social housing obligations, in accordance with the planning and conditions of each project. The city may consider an exchange mechanism, allowing businesses to transfer clean land funds to other locations for the State to organize the development of centralized social housing areas with synchronous technical and social infrastructure.
In addition, it is proposed to apply a payment mechanism based on determining land prices according to market principles, supplementing resources for the Ho Chi Minh City Housing Development Fund to invest in large-scale social housing projects coordinated by the State. For some specific projects, this obligation can be implemented in the form of a combination of land and money.
