According to the Vietnam Association of Realtors (VARS), the Vietnamese real estate market is increasingly affirming its important role, attracting the attention of people, investors and policymakers.
According to the General Statistics Office, the construction and real estate industry contributes an average of 10% of GDP, of which real estate directly accounts for 3.5%, contributing 0.5 percentage points to growth. However, this proportion is only half that of countries in the region, the scale of real estate compared to total economic assets is about 21%, much lower than the 35% in developed countries. This shows that the market still has a lot of room for development in the medium and long term.
However, the current development process still shows many signs of unsustainability, especially the imbalance between product structure and people's ability to pay. In the past three years, the housing supply to the market has increased sharply, but most of them have been concentrated in the high-end segment, serving investment needs, even speculation, while the affordable housing segment - where the largest real demand is concentrated - is scarce. Even in suburban areas, the selling price is still significantly higher than the average income of the people, only " relatively lower" than the center.
The imbalance between supply and demand has caused housing prices, especially apartments in large cities, to increase sharply, establishing a new price level and far exceeding the rate of income growth. This not only narrows people's home ownership opportunities but also poses a potential risk of forming price bubbles.
For a 2-bedroom apartment priced at about 5 billion VND, a family with an income of 50 million VND/month will take 8 years if they have all their income, and up to 25 years if they spend according to the principle of only using 1/3 of their income for the house. Even with social housing, the price of about 1.5 billion VND for a 60m2 apartment also causes a household with an income of 40 million VND/month to save about 10 years, not including borrowing costs.
According to VARS, to develop the market healthily, it is necessary to "reactivate" the hot increase in housing prices through unblocking the supply of affordable housing. When supply is large enough, market prices will automatically adjust according to actual supply and demand.
The proposed solutions include speeding up the completion of documents guiding the implementation of the new law system and enhancing the implementation capacity of local authorities. It is necessary to decentralize and delegate more authority to localities in adjusting policies to be flexible according to each region, in accordance with infrastructure conditions and socio-economic development goals.
Difficulties in site clearance need to be handled transparently and effectively, shortening time for businesses while still ensuring people's rights. Along with that, it is necessary to consider abolishing the regulation on additional collection of 5.4%/year of late payment land use fees, promptly issuing a clear and stable method for determining land use fees, thereby reducing project development costs and creating room for housing price reduction.
VARS also proposes to diversify capital channels for the real estate market, reduce dependence on bank credit, restructure the corporate bond market and promote the formation of a National Housing Fund and a Real Estate Investment and Trust Fund.
Social housing and affordable housing should be prioritized in the planning and have their own incentive mechanisms. Urban development must be linked to transport infrastructure - especially belt routes, metro lines, expressways - to expand urban space, reduce pressure on central land prices. In addition, it is necessary to develop a professional rental market, reduce the mentality of "must own a new house to stabilize life".
In addition, it is necessary to build a system of criteria and early warning indexes to monitor the real estate market, promptly detect signs of speculation, unusual price increases or imbalances in supply and demand, thereby proactively regulating and avoiding the risk of spreading.
Finally, VARS emphasized the need to accelerate the construction of a unified and transparent database of land, housing and real estate markets nationwide. This system will help management agencies, businesses and people access accurate information, reduce risks, prevent speculation and price manipulation, towards a stable, sustainable and transparent market development.
