Realty stocks are attractive: experts
Though difficulties caused by COVID-19 were reflected in the business results of listed realty firms, experts are still optimistic about the market.

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Though difficulties caused by COVID-19 were reflected in the business results of listed realty firms, experts are still optimistic about the market.
Le Nhi Nang, chief representative
of the State Securities Commission (SSC) in Ho Chi Minh City, told a recent seminar on
realty stocks that focused on investment strategy amid the pandemic that: “The
realty market's difficulties are only short-term.”
According to SSC, the pandemic
was a common challenge to the economy and real estate market whose businesses
were facing difficulties when projects were delayed, supply was declining and
the market was quiet.
SSC said those challenges were
reflected in the business results of listed firms, causing their revenue in the
first six months to decrease by 26 percent, while profit fell by 13 percent over the same period. Among the listed firms, 20 reported losses and 35
saw profits drop.
Nang was still optimistic
about the local stock market, adding: “By now, the number of listed firms with
a capitalisation of more than 1 billion USD each have reached 30 on both
exchanges, mainly in the banking and finance group and real estate.
“Listed realty firms
with market capitalisation of more than 1 trillion VND (43 million USD), accounted for 23 percent of the whole market.”
Nang said in the long term,
buying demand for realty was still very large, especially in the context of the
decreasing interest rates of banks. Therefore, realty stocks are of interest
to investors.
He added: “Realty stocks are
divided with strong gainers but strong losers. Investors should be careful
to choose good stocks.”
Vo Tri Thanh, Director of the
Institute of Branding and Competition Strategy, shared the same opinion,
saying: “Among many investment channels, it is necessary to give priority to
choosing realty securities. In fact, although the economy is heavily affected
by the COVID-19 pandemic, statistics in 2020 shows that the number of
individual investors has increased dramatically, the market liquidity is quite
high, and the VN-Index has bounced up since its bottom in March.”
Truong Hien Phuong, senior
director of KIS Vietnam Securities Corporation (KIS), said that the
difficult times of the market have gone and the market will soon open up with
medium and long-term opportunities for securities investors, including realty
stocks.
Phuong said: “Analysing and
selecting potential stocks makes up 50 percent of success in investing.
The rest depends on when investors choose to sell.”
Lai Duc Duong, Head of Real
Estate Industry Analysis Department, Rong Viet Securities (VDSC), said:
“There are many opportunities for investors in realty stocks, especially
short-term investment opportunities. Investors should focus on some of the most
important factors such as clean land fund and legal status of the firms
before buying their stocks.”
Duong advised investors of realty
stocks to check the land fund of the firms, saying: “The larger the land fund
and the clearer the legal status is, the better the firms are as investments.”
“Currently, many businesses just
put projects with full legal status on their financial statements and
don't update the projects that still have problems, making investors only
see part of the picture, not the overall status of their firms.”
According to Netland deputy
general director Nguyen Huu Quang, investors need to find out about the
financial situation and capacity of the business. If some investor buys the
stocks at cheap prices, unfortunately many of them will fall into
businesses with bad financial situations, adding: “Collecting those shares is
no different from collecting garbage.”
Differently, Nguyen Minh Khang,
general director of LDG Company, said that only short-term investors needed to
pay attention to factors related to the development orientation and plans of
the realty firms. Investors with medium and long-term trends should buy any
stocks below par value, with the price of each share below 10,000 VND.
According to KIS Vietnam
Securities Corporation (KIS), the real estate industry's outlook was
very good as the Government was removing difficult policies for real estate
businesses and realty loan rates were listed at an attractive rate, so realty
stocks were considered with higher profit by investors./.