The fever of land auctions has cooled down
Land auction activities are constantly heating up, causing chaos with many fluctuations in Hanoi, but there are signs of cooling down when the winning price for land use rights auctions has decreased significantly.
At the auction of 26 plots of land (LK2, LK6) belonging to the project of building technical infrastructure for the land auctioned for land use rights in area DG 31, Yen Quan village, Tan Phu commune, Quoc Oai district, Hanoi city at the end of December 2024.
The starting price for the land lots in the above auction is 4.7 million VND/m2. At the end of the session, the highest winning price was recorded at 76.7 million VND/m2 (16 times the starting price) and the lowest was 40.7 million VND/m2 (8.7 times the starting price). Although it is still sky-high, compared to the most recent land auction in the same area, it has decreased sharply.
Or at the 2 auctions in November 2024 in Hoai Duc district with the highest winning prices of 103 and 109 million VND/m2, while the highest winning price of the August 2024 session here was 133 million VND/m2. At the same time, in Phuc Tho district, the auction in November 2024 recorded the highest winning price of only 37.6 million VND/m2, half of the auction results held 2 months ago, when some plots in the same area had the highest winning price of up to 75 million VND/m2.
Not only the price has dropped, but the number of people participating in recent auctions has also decreased significantly. In August and September 2024, many auctions attracted hundreds of participants, even with over 1,000 registrations, but now the number of participants has decreased significantly, showing that the land auction fever is starting to cool down.
Important source of income for the locality
According to the representative of Phu Xuyen District People's Committee (Hanoi), in 2025, the district plans to auction 22 projects with an area of over 39,500m2, earning about 300 billion VND. At the same time, Director of the Hoai Duc District Land Fund Center, Mr. Nguyen Huy Hoang, also said that in 2025, the district plans to collect 3,000 billion VND from land auctions. Thus, land use rights auctions in 2025 are still an important source of income for localities. Therefore, Hanoi needs to have a more flexible mechanism in determining starting prices and considering maintaining individual auctions in areas with high actual demand.
According to Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan (residing in Phu Cat commune, Quoc Oai district), the demand for land through auction of people is very high. If the land is allocated to an auction organization, then built according to the overall plan and resold at a price many times higher, it will be difficult for local people to own residential land. Therefore, it should only be applied in areas with strong urbanization rates.
Director of the Northern Project (Phuong Truong An Group), Mr. Ngoc Van Truc, said that auctioning land use rights to serve the implementation of investment projects, in order to form civilized and modern urban areas and housing. Land use rights auctions are still an important source of income for localities. Therefore, Hanoi needs to have a more flexible mechanism in determining starting prices and considering maintaining individual auctions in areas with high actual demand.
According to Article 7, Decision No. 61/2024/QD-UBND dated September 27, 2024 of the Hanoi People's Committee, on the establishment of a land use rights auction plan, it is decided according to each specific project. In case of auctioning land use rights to allocate residential land to individuals, the Hanoi People's Committee will consider and decide on each project, in accordance with the general development orientation and characteristics of each area, while meeting the requirements of planning, architecture and urban landscape.
"To strictly control, ensure land use rights auctions in accordance with regulations, and have high economic efficiency according to legal regulations, publicity and transparency need to be closely coordinated with competent authorities to remove difficulties, supporting people and businesses to access land in a smooth and transparent manner," said Mr. Truc.
