According to land brokers, theprices of agriculture land have doubled and tripled in Vietnam’s southernprovinces, as many buyers leave the city for the countryside.
The trend encouraging people tomove from the city to the outskirts started more than a year ago and increaseddue to the pandemic. Social distancing measures have urged more people to lookfor gardens and agricultural land instead of being locked down in a crowdedcity.
“The trend is making land pricesrise,” said land broker Nguyen Tung Lam.
According to Lam, who mostlyworks in Da Lat city in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, each plotof 1,000 sq.m of agriculture land cost 400-700 million VND (17,000 to 30,000USD) last year. Now the price of a plot could reach between 3 billion VND and 6billion VND.
Agriculture land prices havealso soared in the Mekong Delta, in areas such as Long An, Tien Giang and DongThap.
In Cai Lay district, Tien Giangprovince, the price of agriculture land ranges from 400 million VND to morethan 1 billion VND per plot. They were about 200-230 million VND last year.
Similarly, agricultural landplots around Ho Chi Minh City, such as the province of Dong Nai, are reportedto reach 2-2.5 billion VND per plot.
Nguyen Thu Nga, a land brokerin HCM City, told local media that: “The demand has grown well since last year.Though there are fewer clients coming to see the land, they ask the brokers tocheck carefully for a purchase after the pandemic.”
Most investors in agriculturalland see gains from their investment.
Nguyen Thu Hue, a member of theFacebook Group ‘Leaving the city to the countryside’, with more than 2,500members, said: “I can sell the land I bought at a price three times higher, butI want to keep it.”
Hue believed that the priceswould increase more after the pandemic.
Tran Khanh Quang, Director ofViet An Hoa Realty Company, said that since the end of 2019, some investorshave tended to put aside 5 to 10 percent of their budget to buy agricultureplots or small farms in HCM City’s neighbouring provinces as a safe investment.
As concern over the pandemicgrows, the trend of returning to rural areas is getting more and moreattention. As a result, he said it made the prices of agriculture land rise onthe market./.