Many bright spots appear
Recently, Politburo member and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh visited the social housing area in the new urban area of An Van Duong in Hue city.
Visiting and giving gifts to households, the Prime Minister was excited to see quite spacious apartments with synchronous infrastructure, residents in social housing areas sharing many infrastructure with urban areas. The Prime Minister highly appreciated the efforts and methods of localities and investors in implementing social housing projects.
Hue City is one of the localities expected to complete and exceed the assigned target for social housing in 2025 with 1,443 units ( targets of 1,200 units). Other localities are also likely to complete above 100% of the 2025 target: Hai Phong ( targets 10,694 units, likely to complete 10,785 units), Tuyen Quang ( targets 146 units, expected to complete 100%), Quang Ninh (allotted 2,201 units, expected to complete 2,288 units).
According to statistics from the Ministry of Construction, by the end of June 2025, the whole country had completed 503 social housing projects with about 294,100 apartments. Currently, there are 480 projects continuing to be implemented with a scale of about 411,250 apartments. Of which, there are 75 projects under construction (nearly 40,000 apartments) and 403 projects in the process of preparing for investment (nearly 370,000 apartments).
Hanoi has also just issued a list of 7 key priority social housing projects in the period of 2025 - 2026, with a total scale of more than 1 million m2 of floor space.
In Long An, by the end of June 2025, the province has completed 7 projects with about 4,000 apartments, and is implementing 4 new projects. The locality has also just started another project in Ben Luc district with nearly 700 social housing units for workers. In Binh Duong, the acceleration momentum will continue to be maintained with workers' housing areas attached to industrial parks. The province has developed tens of thousands of more units with reasonable rental prices and is implementing a 20% land fund plan in new urban area projects for social housing.
"Bottlenecks" that have not been resolved
However, according to the assessment of the Ministry of Construction and experts, the speed of social housing implementation in many places has not yet met the requirements. The main cause comes from some "bottlenecks".
Many localities are still slow in approving planning, allocating land, determining investors, and appraising projects. Some provinces have not issued full instructions on the procedures for social housing for rent and workers' housing.
Typically, Ho Chi Minh City currently has 29 out of 64 real estate projects facing difficulties that have not been completely handled.
At a recent working session with Ho Chi Minh City on removing projects, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested the city to resolutely remove obstacles for projects, have specific deadlines and ensure effectiveness. With clear contents and sufficient legal basis, it is necessary to urgently consider and decide; In cases where it is not clear, it is necessary to continue reviewing and collecting complete information before handling.
In addition, Decree 100 and Decree 49 of the Government have clearly stipulated preferential credit policies for investors in social housing projects. However, loan procedures are still complicated and prolonged, while many commercial banks are not interested in implementing a credit package of VND120,000 billion.
More expectations and opportunities
In Conclusion 179-KL/TW in 2025, the Politburo assigned the Government Party Committee to direct the Ministry of Finance: Research and advise on institutionalizing Resolution 201/2025/QH15 on piloting a number of specific mechanisms and policies for the development of social housing in the direction of expanding the subjects eligible to buy and rent social housing.
The expansion of subjects eligible to buy and rent houses is a good signal for the labor force in need. However, the first thing is to solve the supply problem.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, the Ministry of Construction needs to coordinate with the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to issue unified instructions, while allowing the pilot mechanism of "one-stop-shop connection" in localities to shorten project approval time. In addition to preferential credit, there should be policies to support taxes, exempt infrastructure fees, and provide quick licenses for social housing projects. The disclosure of portfolios, progress, and targets for each locality needs to be carried out regularly to promote healthy supervision and competition between provinces and cities.
In particular, the social housing model invested by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor in workers' housing in Dong Thap is a new direction, which needs to be replicated in industrial parks in the West, Southeast, and North Central regions - where housing demand is very high. On July 26, the trade union social housing project under the trade union institutional construction project in My Tho Industrial Park, Trung An Industrial Cluster (Dong Thap) was the first project invested by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor using trade union financial capital. The project is built on a land area of about 3 hectares with main items including: 4 blocks of 8-storey houses with a total floor area of 38,460m2, expected to be put into use in the third quarter of 2027.
