In the period 2021-2025, Ho Chi Minh City completed nearly 18,000 social housing units (NOXH). In 2025 alone, Ho Chi Minh City completed 14 NOXH projects, with a scale of 12,799 units, reaching 98.2% of the 2025 plan, showing great efforts of the entire political system. However, compared to actual needs, this result still has a significant gap.
According to large-scale survey results, the Ho Chi Minh City Development Research Institute found that housing demand in the period 2026-2030 is very large. In which, the group with the need to rent and rent-purchase social housing accounts for a significant proportion, especially in developed inner city areas and suburban areas close to industrial parks and export processing zones.
In the Government's Project on investing in building at least 1 million social housing units, the target by 2030 assigned to Ho Chi Minh City is 199,400 units, accounting for about 20% of the total target nationwide.
To complete the assigned plan, Mr. Pham Minh Man, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction, said that he will focus on promoting projects that have been approved for investment policy to complete legal procedures to the construction permit issuance step, ensuring sufficient conditions for commencement and construction in the first quarter of 2026.
Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has also requested the Department of Construction to develop a diagram to monitor the specific progress of each project. In which, assigning the Department of Construction to preside over and coordinate with relevant units to review the progress of 47 social housing projects that have had investment policy approval decisions (which already have investors, do not have construction permits).
On that basis, the Department of Construction develops a roadmap to monitor the progress of each project in order to accelerate implementation and strive to complete the social housing development targets for the period 2026-2027.
For 34 social housing projects that do not have investors, the Department of Construction is assigned to develop a diagram to monitor the progress of implementation, as a basis to ensure social housing development targets in the following years.
Mr. Truong Anh Tuan - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hoang Quan Real Estate Trading and Service Consulting Joint Stock Company assessed that for the goal of building nearly 200,000 social housing units in Ho Chi Minh City, the completion possibility is well-founded, but stronger and more specific solutions are needed.
Currently, the public land fund put up for auction for social housing development is still very limited, only about 8 projects with a scale of nearly 10 hectares, while the planning for social housing in the city is up to more than 170 hectares. If the public land fund is not quickly transformed into specific projects for auction and implementation, it will be very difficult to achieve the set goals.
Although administrative procedures in the implementation of social housing in Ho Chi Minh City have been significantly shortened, according to feedback from businesses, there is still a major "knot" in the design stage. Currently, there is no common design model system for social housing, while an investor can spend up to a year just to complete the project design stage.
Mr. Truong Anh Tuan proposed that the Department of Construction take the lead in building sample design sets for many types of social housing. This will help the appraisal and approval process to be much faster, helping to significantly shorten the project implementation time.
In addition, experts and businesses also emphasized the issue of needing to change the financial approach to social housing, especially the rental segment. In Ho Chi Minh City, there are at least two groups of subjects with social housing needs: one is officials, civil servants, and armed forces; two are workers and low-income urban workers. With the second group, rental demand accounts for about 80%, while current policies are still biased towards selling.
Mr. Pham Binh An, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Development Research Institute, said that the above reality poses the requirement to diversify social housing models, not only focusing on housing for sale but prioritizing the development of social housing for rent, lease-purchase, and housing for workers.
In addition, the city needs to focus on developing social housing in TOD areas far from the center of Ho Chi Minh City. Social housing development must be linked to high-capacity and high-speed public transport routes; linked to industrial parks, areas with a high concentration of workers living and working," Mr. Pham Binh An stated his opinion.
