Huge investments in housing by the overseas Vietnamese community have helped the market pick up steam.

Le Hoa My of HCM City's District 10 said her husband, who works for a wood processing company in China, remits home some 30,000 USD annually. Seeing that interest rates on dong deposits have gone down sharply, My withdrew 1 billion VND to buy 200sq.m of land in Cu Chi district.

"The price of this plot of land has gone up from 800 million VND two years ago to 1 billion VND now," she said.

"I'll sell it in future for some profit."

A manager at a remittance company in HCM City told Saigon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) newspaper that remittances sent to HCM City in the first five months of this year amounted to 1.7 billion USD.

He said the revival of the housing sector could result in more remittances, which are expected to reach 5.3 billion USD this year, about half a billion dollars more than last year.

The manager of the remittance firm said in the past customers used to sell the dollar remittance they got, convert into dong and deposit the money in banks. But now, with interest rates on dong and dollar deposits down, many overseas Vietnamese invested in the real estate market, he said.

Through banks, overseas Vietnamese clients directly pay for property they buy at new housing projects.

With easier and simplier formalities and the Government allowing overseas Vietnamese to buy houses in Vietnam, the housing market is expected to see more remittances from the overseas community flow in.

Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of the State Bank of Vietnam's HCM City office, said there had been a makeover in terms of choosing asset classes, with a higher proportion of remittances being invested in the real estate and business sectors since 2014.

"Remittances channelled into housing are expected to rise further in the second half of this year," he said.

"The growth rate of 21.2 percent in terms of investments in the real estate sector in 2014 is expected to rise to 23-24 percent this year. Most of the amount invested [in housing] has been in projects now under construction."-VNA