Real estate inventory inches down

As of September 20, the real estate stockpiles were estimated to be worth more than VND26 trillion (US$1.15 billion), dropping by nearly VND4.3 trillion over the end of 2016.

The ministry said in a January – September market report in preparation for the upcoming National Assembly meeting, that the decrease in property inventories had slowed down significantly in recent months because most projects in the stockpiles were located far from downtown areas with underdeveloped infrastructure. Thus, it was difficult to promote the sales of these projects.

There was a redundancy in the high-end housing segment, while there was a severe shortage in affordable homes, reflecting an imbalance in the supply and demand of the real estate market, the ministry said.

The social housing development still failed to meet the market demand due to a lack of incentives, which discouraged housing developers. In addition, there were a few developers interested in building houses for rent.

The construction ministry said it would continue restructuring the real estate market in line with the National Housing Development Strategy, especially boosting social housing developments.

The ministry would propose relevant agencies to arrange capital for the Bank of Social Policies and credit institutions to provide preferential loans to social housing.

Another problem of Vietnam’s real estate market was the lack of an adequate and consistent market information system, according to the ministry. This caused difficulties in State management as well as for citizens in participating in the market.

“There are signs of speculation and information distortions through the intermediary stage,” the report said.

To cope with this, the ministry would continue to make public the names of projects, which were used as mortgage at banks, stagnant projects with legal problems and developers with violations or weak capacity.

In addition, a close watch would be placed on the market development to raise timely measures, prevent speculation and the formation of a market bubble.

The ministry said that the property market saw stable development from January to September.

There were no significant fluctuations in housing prices during this period. Prices of mid- and high-end segments with a good location, infrastructure and construction progress saw slight increases by 3-5%, over 2015.

Successful transactions were also stable, mainly on the mid- and high-end segments, while transactions of affordable homes were modest due to limited supply.

In Hanoi, there were around 10,500 transactions in the nine-month period, up 7.5% over the same period last year. In Ho Chi Minh City, successful transactions totaled 11,320, up by 3.4%.