Hoping for a place to settle down
Mr. Nguyen Cong Tinh (35 years old, from Nghe An) has been in Binh Duong for 10 years, and is currently married and has 2 young children. For a long time, he moved to many boarding houses to live.
"I work as an employee at an aluminum glass company, earning 10 million VND/month, along with my wife's 8 million VND just enough to cover living expenses. Without savings, I have not been able to buy a house in Binh Duong, especially when real estate prices are increasing" - Mr. Tinh expressed.
Similarly, Mr. Nguyen Van Hung (from Thai Binh) has been working as a worker in VSIP Industrial Park in Binh Duong for 10 years and has not been able to buy a house. "The income if I work overtime is only over 10 million VND/month, enough to cover my living expenses, it is difficult to save to buy a house. I hope to have more social housing projects" - Mr. Hung said.
Binh Duong province has about 1.3 million workers, of which over 70% are imported workers from other provinces, owning a house is an urgent need for most workers far from home.
Procedural problems, investors are not interested
According to statistics from the People's Committee of Binh Duong province, from 2021-2023, only 6 social housing projects have been completed and put into use with 1,643 units. In 2024, Binh Duong will build about 15,000 more units. The completed projects are mainly concentrated in Thuan An city and Ben Cat city.
Sharing with some social housing development enterprises in Binh Duong, they face some difficulties in developing social housing such as: Regulations on commercial housing projects having to set aside 20% of land funds to build social housing; land valuation between land funds allocated by the State and land funds purchased by enterprises; enterprises have to face many difficult legal procedures to implement. The profit margin problem is also a major barrier for businesses.
According to Ms. Dang Thi Kim Oanh - Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Kim Oanh Real Estate Group Joint Stock Company, the permitted profit when building social housing is 10%, but in reality it is only about 6%. This makes it very difficult for large enterprises to attract investment.
The investor of a 27ha project in Binh Duong, with a capital of more than VND 2,700 billion, said that the project includes social housing apartments and townhouses, with social housing apartments with full amenities for workers, priced at about VND 700 million/unit. However, to implement it, the enterprise took 8 years to complete legal procedures. The biggest difficulty is the land fund, while the land price for social housing projects has not been clearly regulated.
Recently, the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association recommended that localities resolutely remove obstacles to shorten the time to implement administrative procedures and processes for investment in the construction of social housing projects.
practical in Ho Chi Minh City shows that the "greatest bottleneck" is law enforcement in implementing administrative processes and procedures for social housing projects, especially the unsynchronized coordination and pushing between departments, branches, districts, towns... discouraging businesses.
Establishing a "National Housing Fund" - directing close to reality, in line with needs
On February 24, General Secretary To Lam chaired a working session with the Central Committee for Policy and Strategy on the committee's tasks in the coming time. At the meeting, the General Secretary mentioned the development of a national digital map on planning and land prices; the establishment of a "National Housing Fund" to develop affordable housing in large cities.
Talking to Lao Dong reporter, Mr. Le Hoang Chau - Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) said that this is an important step, helping middle- and low-income people in urban areas have the opportunity to own a house at a reasonable price. Mr. Le Hoang Chau said that HoREA has persistently proposed a policy mechanism to support commercial credit with reasonable commercial interest rates for young people to buy a first home, and more widely to buy a commercial home at a affordable price.
"This is a direction that is close to reality, in line with the needs of the majority of people with average incomes and low-income urban people but not eligible to buy social housing. Low-income people in urban areas but do not meet the standards to buy social housing will be subject to the policy through the National Housing Fund.
The Housing Law has not clearly mentioned the social housing development fund. The Association proposes that the Ministry of Construction coordinate with the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank to develop a project to develop the National Housing Fund to implement the General Secretary's direction, supporting home buyers with affordable commercial housing" - Mr. Chau shared.
The President of HoREA said that the General Secretary's direction this time needs to be legalized to put into practice. Phuong Anh
Dong Nai's social housing goals by 2025 are difficult to achieve
In 2022, the Standing Committee of Dong Nai Provincial Party Committee issued a Resolution with the goal of building 10,000 social housing units and workers' housing in the period of 2021-2025. However, up to now, Dong Nai has only completed about 1,700 social housing units and is continuing to build nearly 1,100 other social housing units. Thus, the social housing target for Dong Nai province by 2025 is very difficult to complete.
Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City are slow to implement social housing
The Ministry of Construction said that many localities have a great demand for social housing, but the progress of construction and implementation is still very slow. For example, in the 2021-2025 period, Hanoi has 28 projects with nearly 23,000 apartments approved for investment policy, but only 4 projects are licensed. In 2024 alone, only one project was licensed with 600 apartments.
Similarly, Ho Chi Minh City also has only one project with 1,500 apartments licensed in 2024. In the 2021-2025 period, the city has 52 projects with more than 56,000 apartments approved in principle, but so far only 6 projects with nearly 4,400 apartments have been licensed.
Dak Lak has not completed any social housing projects
According to the Project assigned by the Prime Minister, Dak Lak must build 18,800 social housing units, of which 1,200 units will be completed in 2024. However, up to now, the whole Dak Lak province has not had any completed projects, many projects are suspended due to lack of investors.
