Difficulties in buying social housing
Remember, the most recent social housing draw in Hanoi was the NHS Trung Van social housing project in May 2023. Only 149 apartments were sold, but nearly 1,500 people participated in the lottery, many people had to wake up at midnight to queue up to hope to have the opportunity to own a house.
"The fever" of NHS Trung Van shows the current shortage of affordable housing.
After nearly 2 years since participating in the lottery draw, Mr. Luong Quang Ngoc (50 years old) is one of hundreds of people who have persistently lined up waiting for the opportunity to rent an apartment at the NHS Trung Van project, and has moved to a new house in this project to continue to nurture the hope of buying a house for himself.
Mr. Ngoc could not hide his joy when he recalled the moment of winning social housing at the project: "From the time of making the application to draw an apartment is a long journey. When I received the draw results, my family burst into happiness as one of the lucky people to hire social housing at the project to open a larger ownership opportunity".
After a series of challenges he has faced and although he is now living in a spacious apartment, in reality, Mr. Ngoc still cannot own this apartment. Because according to regulations, after 5 years of renting, if he wants to continue staying, Mr. Ngoc must reconsider the conditions to buy from the beginning.
Mr. Ngoc shared: "After 5 years of renting, if I buy a social housing, I have to "sustainable housing" to be eligible for re-examination from the beginning. Because only with an income exceeding 15 million VND/month or having a private house will not be eligible to buy social housing".
Struggling to confirm income
In reality, owning a social housing unit is not easy. Like Mr. Vu Xuan Toi (Long Bien, Hanoi), this year he is over 70 years old, but still working hard, hoping to help his son own a place to live "even though it is the most peaceful place for him" in Hanoi.
Mr. Toi shared that his family has researched and applied for social housing in different projects in Hanoi many times but have not been successful.
The biggest problem his family encountered was not being able to prove that their son's income was "low but stable", a requirement according to new regulations in the 2023 Housing Law.
Not only Mr. Toi's family, millions of freelance workers such as technology drivers, bricklayers, traders... are also struggling to prove their income to be eligible to buy social housing, due to no fixed salary table, no labor contract...
According to Decree No. 100/2024/ND-CP, people who want to buy social housing must meet the condition of not owning a house in a project and household income must not exceed 30 million VND/month. However, income confirmation procedures are a major obstacle, especially for freelancers.
The reality shows that not only people are facing difficulties, but even local authorities, which are responsible for appraisal and confirmation of documents, are facing a series of challenges in this work.
Talking to Lao Dong, Ms. Vu Thi Thu Hoai, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Thuong Thanh Ward (Long Bien, Hanoi), said that in the ward, there are a number of social housing projects that have received registration documents. Many people in need have come to the ward People's Committee to confirm low income. But up to now, the ward has not been able to resolve these confirmation requests because there is no basis to confirm them to citizens.
In particular, for freelance workers, verification is even more difficult because people do not declare personal income tax and do not participate in insurance, leading to the ward having no basis for confirmation.
"There have been cases where people have asked to confirm their income as security guards, but because there is no labor contract, the ward cannot confirm it," said Ms. Vu Thi Thu Hoai.
Therefore, the People's Committee of Thuong Thanh Ward recommends that the Department of Construction and the Department of Finance soon have specific instructions so that the locality has a basis to solve this problem. If the situation continues, people will be affected, because the income confirmation form is a mandatory requirement in the registration file.
Without confirmation, people cannot submit documents, even if they are qualified and have a real need for social housing.
Proposed solutions
The birth of the Housing Law 2023 brings great expectations to the social housing segment, as some barriers to beneficiaries have been removed. However, in reality, legal procedures are still cumbersome, requiring stronger reforms.
Experts say there needs to be a more open mechanism to help people access social housing more easily.
Dr. Tran Xuan Luong, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute for Real Estate Market Research and Evaluation, commented that one of the biggest barriers today is that people, despite their need to buy social housing, are having a hard time accessing it due to complicated procedures.
Mr. Luong said that although the scope of access to social housing has been expanded, there is no clear regulation on which bank people will be able to borrow capital from, with what conditions. This has caused low-income people (policy beneficiaries) to continue to be eliminated from the game due to their inability to access preferential financial resources.
"Pursuing income conditions and people not owning a house is also a difficult procedure. Low-income people often have to go to work and have difficulty traveling many times to verify. If the locality is not flexible in administrative procedures, without online plans or authorization, it will be very difficult for people to access policies, Mr. Luong assessed.
Moreover, after completing the above steps, the documents still have to go through the approval round of the Department of Construction, the complicated process is causing difficulties for people who want to buy social housing.
Regarding the solution, Dr. Tran Xuan Luong said that it is necessary to synchronously resolve each bottleneck. First of all, each locality should establish a specialized department according to the "one-stop" mechanism so that people only need to go to one place to complete all procedures for purchasing social housing. This department also needs to support investors in completing administrative procedures.
In addition, the State needs to prepare clean land funds and clearly publicize them so that businesses can easily access and implement projects, avoiding prolonged legal problems. should introduce banks participating in preferential lending programs in advance, and a list of standard construction materials suppliers for social housing can be established.
"It is necessary to create a closed support chain from administrative procedures, land funds, loans to materials to avoid the situation where land has a shortage of capital, capital has procedures, or if there are sufficient conditions, cannot find a construction contractor. If we cannot do that, we will continue to operate illegally and cannot put social housing policies into practice, Mr. Luong emphasized.
