Salary over 20 million VND/month is still difficult to buy a house
After many years of working, Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan (29 years old), a technical staff in Hanoi, has an income of about 23 million VND/month but still finds it difficult to accumulate to buy a house. Currently, he rents a room near his workplace with a cost of about 6 million VND/month, not including 6 - 7 million VND for food and nearly 2 million VND for travel and living expenses. After deducting expenses, each month he only saves 3 - 4 million VND.
According to Mr. Tuan, if buying an apartment for about 2 billion VND, installments can be 10 - 12 million VND/month, exceeding long-term affordability. Therefore, he hopes for suitable housing programs so that young people have the opportunity to settle down.
Sharing with Lao Dong reporters, a representative of the Ministry of Construction said that in 2025, housing prices, especially apartments, will continue to increase with an average increase of about 10-15% per year; exceptionally, there are periods of increase of up to 30%.
Reality in major cities shows that a commercial apartment with a moderate area is currently often offered for sale at a price of several billion VND. With the common salary of 10-15 million VND/month for young workers and civil servants, accumulating enough counterpart capital to borrow to buy a house is almost an "unsolvable problem".
Previously, the Government issued Decree 261/2025/ND-CP (effective from October 10, 2025) amending Decree 100/2024/ND-CP guiding the 2023 Housing Law, stipulating the income level for individuals buying social housing to be increased to a maximum of 20 million VND/month. In case the applicant is married, the total average monthly actual income of the couple does not exceed 40 million VND/month.
The Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) believes that currently a large part of people with average and low incomes in urban areas are falling into a "middle" position when looking for housing. This is a group of individuals with an income of about 21 - 30 million VND/month; husband and wife with a total income of 41 - 50 million VND/month; or single people raising young children with an income of over 30 million VND per month.
According to HoREA, this group is not eligible to buy or rent social housing because they exceed the prescribed income threshold (20 million VND/month). However, with the commercial housing price level continuously being high for many years, they also do not have enough financial capacity to buy houses according to the market mechanism.
Research to raise the ceiling income for social housing purchases
At a recent Government meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh assigned the Ministry of Construction to study raising the income limit for social housing buyers to 25 - 27 million VND/month. This level is 25 - 35% higher than the ceiling of 20 million VND/month applied from October 2025. Individuals eligible to buy this type of housing include low-income people in urban areas, officials, civil servants, public employees and single people.
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Nam - General Director of G-Home Joint Stock Company, a company specializing in social housing development - said that raising the ceiling income for social housing purchases is suitable for reality. The income level of 27 million VND/month may seem high, but when it comes to cover living expenses, raising children and family expenses, the budget for housing is usually only about 20-30% of total income. With this ratio, raising the income ceiling is necessary for people to be able to borrow from banks and pay in installments to buy houses for 20-25 years.
From another perspective, Dr. Tran Xuan Luong - Lecturer in Real Estate, National Economics University - believes that social housing must first be considered a social security policy, aimed at supporting vulnerable groups such as low-income people, workers, hard-working people or people with meritorious services.
Raising the income ceiling to 25 - 27 million VND/month may be suitable for market developments in the context of house prices in major cities increasing rapidly. This means that there will be an additional group of people who are eligible to buy social housing. However, currently, social housing resources for low-income people in society have not been resolved. Therefore, if income conditions are relaxed, low-income people will have even more difficulty in having the opportunity to buy a house.
Dr. Tran Xuan Luong said that the core issue is not in raising the income ceiling, but in redefining goals and redesigning social housing policies. From international experience, he said that in some countries such as Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, social housing is mainly used for rent or lease-purchase, instead of immediate sale. After a long time, it may take 10-20 years for the State to equitize prices, both ensuring people have time to accumulate and helping the State recover budget.
