"Fever" of buying agricultural land, dividing and selling plots
For over 2 months, Mr. Nguyen The Anh - a land investor - has been following brokers to the outskirts of Hanoi to "witness" plots of land advertised as agricultural land, leading the trend of expanding the limit for transferring land use rights according to the new Land Law. Most recently, Mr. The Anh was taken to see an agricultural plot of land measuring over 100 square meters on Quang Tien Street, Dai Mo Ward, Nam Tu Liem District, Hanoi City, priced at 2.3 billion VND.
The land is more than 5m wide and 20m long, located close to Quang Tien Street, near the new urban area of Tay Mo Ward and Aeonmall Ha Dong supermarket, so it has quite good potential. The broker said the landowner "broke financial leverage" so he had to sell urgently, if there is good will, they can negotiate further.
“Buying this agricultural land to build a factory or a motel for rent has a lot of potential,” said the broker, revealing that if you want to build solidly, you have to do it step by step, initially build small, surround it with corrugated iron, then gradually expand it, so that you won’t be caught by the authorities.
Cam Lam and Dien Khanh districts (Khanh Hoa province) in the period of 2019 to 2021 were hot spots for agricultural land fever and land division and sale. Land values became "hot", causing many people to be willing to conjure up agricultural land to divide and sell land for profit.
Mr. Tien Dung (name changed) - a land broker in Cam Lam district, said: Thuy Trieu lagoon area has previously attracted many customers' attention for investment. Grasping the psychology of wanting to speculate, Mr. Dung has bought a large amount of agricultural and aquaculture land to divide into plots.
From a few million VND/m2 initially, the land price was pushed up by the market to 25-30 million VND/m2. There were even people willing to spend billions of VND to buy a sao of agricultural land. During that land fever, Mr. Dung "surfed" and quickly made a profit before withdrawing from the market.
There are many profitable real estate "surfing" cases like Mr. Dung in Cam Lam in particular and Khanh Hoa province in general. However, there are also many investors who have "bitterly" suffered because of sky-high price speculation.
Like Ms. Le Thuy (Nha Trang City) who borrowed money from the bank to invest in agricultural land when land prices were high, following the trend of "land fever". Initially, surfing brought profits, but when the fever passed, she and many friends had to "bear the loss" and continue to pay monthly bank interest.
Need strong solutions to "tighten" the subdivision and sale of agricultural land
Mr. Pham Duc Toan - CEO of EZ Real Estate Investment and Development Joint Stock Company (EZ Property) said that the market is seeing individuals, groups, and organizations buying agricultural land to anticipate new changes under the 2024 Land Law.
"According to my observations, places with a lot of large-scale garden and hill land are being actively collected by businesses," said Mr. Toan, pointing out that the situation of individuals, groups, and organizations buying up agricultural land to wait for site clearance and compensation at high prices is very common.
Speaking to Lao Dong reporter, lawyer Truong Anh Tu - Chairman of TAT Law Firm - said that after the 2024 Land Law took effect, many localities witnessed a wave of large-scale agricultural land acquisition. Many investors do not use the land for production but only aim to wait for prices to increase or take advantage of land compensation policies to make a profit.
As a result, many agricultural lands are abandoned and not used for their intended purposes, causing serious waste. This not only affects agricultural output and food security, but also prevents businesses and real farmers from accessing land to develop production.
More worryingly, land acquisition to wait for planning or compensation has created long-term consequences for the social environment, unreasonably increasing land prices and pushing farmers out of the agricultural production market.
To prevent land speculation and hoarding for the wrong purposes, Lawyer Truong Anh Tu said that the 2024 Land Law has proposed many strict management measures. First, the use of land after receiving the transfer of rights is bound by specific requirements, in which the land owner must put the land into production within a certain period of time. If not met, the land will be reclaimed.
Second, the authorities also step up inspection and supervision of land use, strictly handling cases of improper use or land abandonment. Public transparency of land use planning is also an important solution to limit the use of planning information to manipulate land prices.
"If land is not used for the right purpose, the State agency has the right to reclaim it. In serious cases, such as violating planning or causing great damage to the State and society, criminal liability may be prosecuted. This is a necessary mechanism to protect land resources and prevent abuse of land accumulation policies," said lawyer Tu.
To prevent land speculation and ensure security and order, localities in Khanh Hoa, such as Dien Khanh, Cam Lam and Nha Trang, have developed plans to monitor and publicly disclose planning and information about approved projects.
