Vietnam has more than 5.1 million sq.m of built social housing, accounting for only about 41.4 percent of the country's target by 2020 (Photo: VNA) According to the statistics, the total area of more than 5.1 millionsq.m of built social housing accounted for only 41.4 percent of the target of12.5 million sq.m of proposed housing in the National Housing DevelopmentStrategy by 2020.
According to realty insiders, the supply of low-priced apartments wasstill very scarce. The affordable segment, which was more expensive than thelow-income segment, was also not easy to find while the need to improve theaccommodation for people with limited income was growing.
The MoC said since 2016 there have been about 1,040 projects to buildsocial housing for low-income people in urban areas and industrial parkworkers, including 507 independent housing projects and 533 social housingprojects built on 20 percent of the land fund of commercial housing and urbandevelopment projects.
Up to now, only 248 projects have been completed with a constructionscale of more than 103,500 apartments in a total area of more than 5.1million sq.m. Another 264 projects with a construction scale of about 216,500apartments and total area of about 10.8 million sq.m were being built.
While the segment of low-priced apartments dominated in terms of totalnumber of transactions on the market, the supply will not be further improveduntil the end of 2022.
A representative of the MoC said: “The tightening of administrativeprocedures in project construction and development limited the new supply ofreal estate projects.”
The MoC’s latest report on the real estate market showed that affordableapartments are priced below 25 million VND per sq.m in big cities while pricesfor each sq.m of a low-income house far from the centre was below 25 millionVND.
The report also said as there was little supply of low-income houses,the prices increased from less than 20 million VND to less than 25 million VND persq.m.
Professor Dang Hung Vo told local media: “The State's affordable housingdevelopers can only meet 15 percent of the housing supply for immigrants andthe rest of them have to take care of themselves.”
Vo added: “These people are in need of cheap commercial housing, rangingfrom 700 million VND to 1 billion VND each.”
He calculated the supply of cheap houses was nowhere near the demand.
Due to the lack of supply, according to most insiders, social housinghas never experienced a crisis in transactions and the liquidity was always themost stable in the market.
The latest data and reports from realty research firm Savills Vietnamsaid household size in HCM City has tended to decrease over the past ten years.The household size was 3.5 people per household in 2019, much lower than therate of 3.9 people per household in 2009.
The firm also said 66 percent of households have from two to fourmembers, and there is a trend of separating households, which led to anincrease in housing demand.
According to Savills Vietnam, the number of apartments offered for saleon the market with a value of 2 billion VND each or less accounted for about 10percent of the total number.
Many investors and developers are following the trend of reducing thearea to fit the needs of small families and make the value suitable for buyers.However, the number of apartments of less than 2 billion VND, from 50 to60sq.m, was not many.
Vo Thi Khanh Trang, deputy director of Savills Research Department in HoChi Minh City, said as the land fund was limited and the price of constructionmaterials was increasing, the prices of houses would increase.
Trang said in order to increase the supply for the low-price andaffordable housing segment, "it is necessary to have co-operation fromlocal authorities with policies to support businesses to quickly solveadministrative procedures and businesses which build such projects."
On April 15, the MoC representatives met with Korean housing experts inHCM City to share experience in social housing development of the Republic ofKorea (RoK) as part of a project on the building of a master policy on Vietnam'ssocial housing development for the 2021-30 period, carried out usingnon-refundable official development assistance (ODA) from the RoK governmentvia the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
Director of Korea Housing and Land Research Institute (LHI) Moon Hyogonsaid in the current economic growth context, relying on government supportalone cannot provide enough housing to meet people's needs, especially in thelow-income segments.
Moon Hyogon said using money from the private sector in housingprovision should be a solution, saying: “As more Vietnamese businesses can earnprofits from low-income household building, they should put a certain amount ofthe revenues to increase development funds for developing low-income housing.”
The Korean expert said the formation of such a fund was expected tocarry out the unified, systematic management of many aspects includingfinancial resources, thereby achieving successful results for Vietnam./.
VNA
