However, according to professionals, property prices are expected to be erratic.

The construction of a series of large apartment buildings broke ground in the capital city of Hanoi last December, signaling an increase in demand, experts said. The most noteworthy are six apartment buildings in the Viet Hung new urban area and a high-class apartment building in Ha Dong, they added.

To reduce population density in the city centre, Hanoi authorities plan to build satellite urban areas in Soc Son, Me Linh, Quoc Oai, Xuan Mai and Mieu Mon in the near future.

However, experts stated that the signals are not strong enough to help stabilise property prices in Hanoi. They said the cost of small and medium-sized apartments may rise sharply, as demand for these kinds of apartments increases. At present, there is a lack of low-priced apartments costing VND300-500 million while there is a surplus of higher-class apartments priced at VND2-3 billion.

Meanwhile, in HCM City, investors and buyers will have much to look forward to when 25,000-30,000 apartments are released to the market this year. However, only a small number of these are in the lower price range.

Last year’s census showed that there are 25.4 million people in the country’s urban areas while the total housing area is 309 million square metres (equivalent to 12.8 square metres per person). It is expected that the population in urban areas will rise to around 35 million in 2015 while the average per capita housing area should rise to 15 square metres, making the demand for housing in urban areas around 525 million square metres.