Foreigners buy houses in Vietnam as green light turns on

A local newspaper reported that a Japanese footballer playing Series A football league in Italy has bought luxury houses in district 2, HCM City, through a financial investment fund. 

This is just one deal the footballer has made in the Asian real estate market.

An analyst commented that the real estate projects developed by Japanese and the Republic of Korea (RoK) investors receive high attention from Japanese and RoK citizens.

The Eastern apartment block in district 9, HCM City, for example, attracts many RoK buyers. A high percentage of the RoK citizens choose to live there, though they have to travel long distances every day to the central area of the city, where their offices are located.

According to Hong Soon Chang, the RoK Deputy Consul General in HCM City, about 850,000 RoK people come to Vietnam every year.

The representative of a real estate firm which develops apartments in the eastern part of HCM City, said in addition to Vietnamese investors, the firm now looks for potential clients in the Bien Hoa and Nhon Trach Export Processing Zones, where many RoK investors set factories as well.

The businessman also thinks that Japanese and RoK investors always keep contact with their ‘fellow-countrymen’ when making outward investment. Therefore, they are willing to cooperate when they are in overseas markets.

“I know some foreign invested enterprises which lease wholesale luxury apartments for their managerial staff,” he said. “Many others buy apartments to re-lease to other expats.”

A report of the HCM City Real Estate Association (HoREA) showed that about 700 foreigners have bought high-end houses in HCM City in the period from July 1, 2015, when the 2014 Housing Law took effect, to the end of the first quarter of 2016.

The figure is modest if noting that there are 90,000 expats living and working in Vietnam, 50% of whom are in HCM City. 

However, the association commented that this is an encouraging result considering that only 120,000 foreigners bought houses in five years after the Resolution No 19 on allowing foreigners to buy houses on a trial basis was enacted.

According to Phu My Hung Development Company, the number of expats in Phu My Hung New Urban Areas has increased by 35% in the last two years, or by 11,000 to 15,000 residents.