There must be clean land fund and preferential capital
Talking to Lao Dong, Lawyer Pham Thanh Tuan - real estate legal expert - said that administrative procedures are just one of many necessary conditions for developing social housing and this stage has now been simplified to the maximum. Meanwhile, the remaining two key factors, clean land fund and preferential capital, are still the main "bottlenecks", causing the implementation progress to not reach expectations.
According to Mr. Tuan, the legal system regulating the social housing sector has undergone significant reforms. Resolution 201 of the National Assembly in 2025 and Decree 192/2025 (amended from Decree 2021) have shortened a series of procedures in the investment process.
Previously, investors had to establish planning tasks, bid to select investors and appraise feasibility study reports. Now those steps have been cut off. The investor is assigned to directly implement the project and only needs to apply for a construction permit to be able to implement. Procedures for social housing are now at the maximum level of streamlining" - Mr. Tuan affirmed.
However, in reality, not many projects have been strongly implemented. According to the lawyer, there are two main reasons. Firstly, the new policy has just come into effect - Resolution 201 applied from 1.6.2025, some provisions from 1.7.2025, so it still needs time to "absorb" reality. Currently, many new investors are in the process of preparing documents to apply for investment approval. A social housing project that wants to complete the product usually takes at least 12 - 18 months, he said.
Second, the supply of clean land is still very limited. According to regulations, localities must proactively arrange compensated land funds and cleared land for social housing, but currently most still rely on 20% of land funds in commercial projects. "These land plots are available and can be implemented immediately, while land outside the commercial area must be compensated, site clearance is costly and takes a lot of time" - Mr. Tuan analyzed.
He added that the capital for social housing is not really preferential. Enterprises currently mainly access commercial loans, while the VND120,000 billion credit package (now increased to VND140,000 - VND145,000 billion) only has an interest rate 1.5 - 2% lower than the normal loan interest rate. "This difference is not attractive enough for businesses to boldly invest. To unblock capital flows, there needs to be a separate loan package from the State budget with deeper preferential interest rates, he proposed.
Need to switch from pre-inspection to post-inspection
According to Lawyer Pham Thanh Tuan, the "green channel" in social housing development needs to be understood as a mechanism allowing businesses to implement pre-inspection and post-inspection, that is, shifting from pre-inspection to post-inspection. However, up to now, social housing projects have not been truly operated according to the complete "green channel" model, because they still have to comply with the process of establishing, appraising and approving the project before it is built.
From the above factors, the lawyer emphasized that for sustainable development of social housing, three pillars are needed: Procedures - land fund - capital source. In particular, procedures have been relatively stable, but land funds and capital are still "bottlenecks" that need to be untied. "We have only met the necessary conditions, while the conditions are sufficient - especially in terms of preferential capital and clean land - which are still gaps that need to be completed soon" - said lawyer Tuan.
