That is the request of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the 5th Meeting of the Central Steering Committee for Housing Policy and Real Estate Market, held on January 13.
This is not a technical adjustment, but a change in policy thinking.
Because reality shows that the housing demand of workers today is no longer purely "buying to own", but is strongly shifting to renting or renting to buy, flexibly according to jobs, income and labor migration process.
Workers, service workers, and young workers today work in this province, and a few years later move to another locality. In that context, the mindset of "buying a house" to stabilize is no longer appropriate.
Therefore, it is necessary to determine that social housing for rent is not a temporary solution, but a strategic segment.
Renting houses helps low-income people have decent, legal, and safe accommodation; helps businesses retain workers; helps localities stabilize social security and urban order.
More importantly, the form of renting a house correctly solves the affordability of the majority of workers, who do not have enough savings to buy a house, but need a long-term, decent place to live.
But reality shows that businesses are not enthusiastic about social housing for rent because of low profits, long capital recovery time, high management risks, while land procedures, site clearance, and preferential credit still have many "bottlenecks".
Building houses for rent without strong enough support, it is difficult for anyone to dare to invest large capital and long-term labor.
To make this segment develop substantially, the State must get involved more strongly, from clean land funds, streamlined investment procedures, low-interest long-term credit, to housing subsidy policies for low-income people.
After the house is built, there must be someone to rent, rent to the right people and rent for a long time, that is the measure of the effectiveness of the policy.
The most necessary thing to avoid is building social housing in the style of "reporting achievements". Localities measuring the number of apartments, but far from workplaces, rental prices exceeding affordability, or providing to the wrong subjects is meaningless.
Social housing for rent is not to count the number of projects, but to bring accommodation to workers, especially the poor.
Social housing is only truly meaningful when low-income workers and the poor move in, not when the project is inaugurated.
Promoting social housing for rent is choosing the right needs of society. But if done halfway, following the trend, no matter how many houses are built, people who need a house will still stand aside.
