In August 2020, Mr. Nguyen Minh Tri (29 years old, Thanh Tri, Hanoi) decided to buy a 70m2 apartment in a project under construction in Tu Hiep commune, Thanh Tri district, Hanoi.
Mr. Tri said: “At the time of buying the house, my savings were less than 300 million VND. But because I had always dreamed of owning my own house, and was also tired of renting a temporary house, I decided to buy it as soon as I had the opportunity.”
To suit his financial situation, Mr. Tri only researched projects in the suburbs, far from the center with prices of about 15-17 million VND/m2 and supported by bank loans. At that time, house prices were not as high as they are now, so it was not difficult to find suburban apartments in this price range. After researching many old and new projects in areas such as Thanh Tri, Ha Dong, Long Bien, etc., Mr. Tri decided to buy his current house.
“The apartment has an area of 70 square meters, at that time it cost about 1.1 billion VND, I had to borrow from friends and relatives, and borrow from the bank up to more than 70% of the apartment value to pay. The investor has a policy of paying according to construction progress, so it also extends the time to turn around the money, the final payments, the larger amount was disbursed by the bank for loans, so I paid on time and received the house in early 2021”.
Regarding the monthly repayment of principal and interest, Mr. Tri said: “At first, there was a policy of interest support from the bank, so I had to pay more than 10 million VND per month. After the preferential interest rate ended, the floating interest rate was high, so there were months when I had to pay up to 13 million VND. Sometimes it was quite difficult to pay off the debt, because my income at that time was only more than 15 million VND/month, I had to take on other jobs to pay the bank. Currently, I still have to pay off the debt regularly every month, in about 3 years I will pay off the mortgage loan.”
Sharing more about the decision to buy a house at that time, Mr. Tri said: “The decision at that time was a bit reckless, because I only had 300 million but I dared to buy a house, and my salary was not high. But I also wanted to create pressure and motivation for myself to try. Now I feel that my efforts were worth it, the house prices are currently high, if I didn't buy at that time, I think it would have been more difficult for me to buy a house now. If calculated according to the selling price of apartments in this project, my house can now be sold for 3 billion VND".
Assessing the recent price developments of apartments in Hanoi, Mr. Thanh, a real estate broker, said that apartment prices have increased quite rapidly in recent years. “There are customers who are looking to buy a house, spend too much time researching, and after 2-3 months they do not make a purchase decision. When they come back later, the price may be at a different level.”
In the third quarter 2024 market report, the Vietnam Association of Realtors said that the real estate market is gradually "heating up", especially in the real estate segment.
For apartments, in the primary market, by the end of the third quarter of 2024, the average selling price of new apartments in Hanoi is approaching 60 million VND/m2, an increase of 64% compared to the first quarter of 2019. Meanwhile, in the secondary market, the price of old apartments has shown signs of slowing down after a period of rapid increase.
