The dream of settling down from rented rooms
In a rented room of about 40m2 in an alley in Xuan Huong ward - Da Lat, Ms. Tran Thi Lan's family (teacher) is still struggling to balance spending. With a total income of about 20 million VND/month, rent alone accounts for 6 million VND, not including living expenses and children's education.
Both husband and wife came from Nghe An to Da Lat to study and then stayed to work. We are eligible to buy social housing but so far there is still no project to register for. With the current salary, buying a house in Da Lat is almost impossible" - Ms. Lan shared.
That is also the reality of many young workers and civil servants in Lam Dong. As house prices increase, social housing becomes the biggest hope for them to stabilize their lives.
More fortunately, Ms. Dinh Thi Phuong, a civil servant of the Lam Dong Industrial Parks Management Board, bought a 40m2 social housing apartment in the social housing area for workers in Phu Hoi Industrial Park (Duc Trong commune) for about 390 million VND.
According to Ms. Phuong, if she continues to rent a house, after 10 years the family will spend about 600 million VND but still have no accumulated assets. Meanwhile, buying social housing in installment form helps the monthly payment amount be equivalent to the rent, but later the apartment becomes owned by the family.
The most precious thing is stability when having a house. The family no longer has to worry about increased rent or having to move suddenly" - Ms. Phuong said.
Removing bottlenecks to realize goals
According to Mr. Ho Ngoc Phong Hai - Deputy Director of Lam Dong Provincial Department of Construction, according to the 2026 - 2030 plan, the province sets a target of developing 17,200 social housing units. However, so far, the locality has not had any more projects completed or newly started. The biggest bottleneck is site clearance and investment procedures.
In fact, the An Son social housing project (147 units), although started in March 2025, is still behind schedule due to site clearance issues. The Phu Hoi Industrial Park social housing project (block 3B, 102 units) cannot be implemented on schedule because investment procedures and land handover have not been completed. The Kim Dong project (94 units) must also be reviewed due to prolonged compensation and site clearance work.
Not only hindered in the implementation stage, attracting businesses to invest also faces difficulties when profits are low, procedures are complicated, and project implementation time is prolonged, increasing capital costs.
In addition, the province has had positive signals when the social housing project in Duc Trong commune proposed by First Living Co., Ltd. with a scale of 3,328 units has been approved for the list and is appraising investment policies. If procedures are completed, the project is expected to start construction at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027.
To complete the target of 17,200 social housing units, many opinions suggest that the province needs to drastically remove "bottlenecks" in site clearance, shorten the time to resolve procedures, prepare clean land funds and have mechanisms to support investors to access capital sources, credit incentives, and taxes.
When income has not kept up with house prices, each completed social housing project will open up more housing opportunities for workers. Conversely, slow project progress means many young families continue to have to wait for a stable home.
