Currently, a large proportion of middle and low-income people in urban areas are in a "middle" position when looking for housing. This group is not eligible to buy or rent social housing because they exceed the prescribed income threshold (20 million VND per month). However, with the price level of commercial housing continuously being high for many years, they also do not have enough financial capacity to buy houses according to the market mechanism.
Reality in Ho Chi Minh City shows that the "reasonable housing" segment has been almost rare on the market for many years. This is a type of 1-2 bedroom apartment, with an area of about 50-70 m2, priced from 2-5 billion VND per unit, a level considered close to the affordability of middle-income groups.
Citing specific data, Mr. Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA), said that in 2020, Ho Chi Minh City (before adjusting administrative boundaries) only had 163 units in the affordable segment, accounting for about 1% of the total number of houses put on the market. From 2021 to the end of June 2025, the market no longer has this type, but mainly mid-range and high-end housing, in which high-end housing accounts for over 70% of the supply structure. In the period from 2024 to mid-2025, commercial housing projects in Ho Chi Minh City (old) almost only had the high-end segment. The surplus of high-end products led to a mismatch between supply and demand.
Explaining this situation, many real estate businesses said that in the context of sharply increasing project development costs, building houses priced at 30-50 million VND per m2 is only feasible in suburban areas, where land funds are still large and input land prices are not too high. In central areas or where infrastructure has been completed, where land costs account for a large proportion, maintaining this price level is very difficult.
According to the draft resolution piloting the development of affordable commercial housing being consulted by the Ministry of Construction, investors of affordable commercial housing are entitled to a maximum profit margin of 15% of the total investment capital of the project; do not have to allocate land funds to build social housing within the project scope; have reduced conditions for capital mobilization; and are entitled to borrow capital at lower preferential interest rates and longer loan terms than in the case of building ordinary commercial housing as prescribed.
Commenting on the draft, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, Mr. Le Hoang Chau, said that the maximum profit should not be controlled at 15% but only the selling price should be controlled from 30 - 70 million VND/m2, meaning that each 2-bedroom apartment has a price of about 2 - 5 billion VND. Because although targeting a group of middle-income customers, commercial housing projects with reasonable prices are essentially still classified as commercial housing. Therefore, the State's direct intervention by setting a maximum profit level of 15% is not necessary and it is also difficult to consider it a preferential policy for businesses.
Besides the issue of profit, Mr. Chau said that HoREA also proposes to build a separate credit mechanism for both businesses and homebuyers to promote the supply of affordable housing.
For investors, the association proposes to allow access to medium-term commercial credit sources with reasonable interest rates and loan terms regulated by the Prime Minister for each period. In the current context, an interest rate of about 6-7%/year is considered appropriate, with a loan term of about 5 years. The interest rate applied to overdue debts is proposed at 130% of the lending interest rate.
For buyers or tenants buying commercial housing at reasonable prices, HoREA proposes a mechanism for long-term commercial credit loans with a term of about 10 - 12 years, interest rates are adjusted according to each period. Similarly, on the business side, the overdue debt interest rate should also be applied at the threshold of 130% of the lending interest rate.
