Blocks of social housing apartments in Ninh Thuan Province. The completion of some huge social housing projects this year is expected to boost sales in the market. (Photo: VNA) Ha was speaking at the seminar 'Vietnamese real estate: outcome and outlook' onJanuary 3.
He said the tide of cheap money in late 2021 had lifted many boats in the earlymonths of 2022, including real estate. Housing prices were soaring on the backof the post-pandemic economic recovery and the growing demand from homebuyers.
However, the industry began to go into reverse in the late months of the yearas a result of a change in the governmental stance on bank credit and corporatebonds. The government's tightening up on the two capital channels has causedworries among investors and brought it to a halt.
"The number of estate agents now stands at around 30 to 40% of that in theearly half of 2022," said Ha.
Still, he has an optimistic outlook for the industry in the short term as thecompletion of some huge social housing projects this year is expected toencourage sales to low-income homebuyers.
Nguyen Manh Quynh, chief of staff of the Vietnam Association of Realtors, heldthat the supply of commercial real estate was tight in 2022 with around 48,500products for sale, equaling just 28% of the figure in 2018.
"The market was facing a shortage of affordable housing and, at the sametime, witnessing a surge in luxury housing," said Quynh.
By product types, land slots took up 44% of the pie and high-end housingfollowed with 37%. Middle-end housing came next with 15% whereas low-endapartments stayed at rock bottom with 4%.
The chief of staff forecast that real estate sales would remain low in Q1/2023but begin to improve in Q2/2023 on the grounds of a better macroeconomicsituation. Average prices, meanwhile, are expected to fall slightly untilmid-Q2 and then level off towards the end of the year.
Pham Lam, chairman of the DKRA Group, revealed that 1,081 real estateenterprises were dissolved and 2,379 temporarily ceased their operation in thefirst 11 months of 2022.
The situation is not better now as real estate enterprises face many setbacks.One of the setbacks is the tight supply of land, which falls between 40 to 83%year-by-year across segments.
Lam urged the enterprises to cut costs and cut staff wisely to get through thistough time. He said digital transition is a solution to the cost-saving problemas it significantly reduces overheads.
"My message for the enterprises in 2023 is 'tighten your belts'," Lamadded.
Can Van Luc, chief economist at the JS Commercial Bank for Investment andDevelopment of Vietnam, estimated total capital funneled to real estate in 2022at 507 trillion VND (21.5 billion USD), of which 71.0% come from bank loans and10.8% from corporate bonds.
"Corporate bonds normally account for about 22% of real estate capital.Unfortunately, this source of financing was reduced by half last year,"said Luc.
The economist also revealed that he was urging the government to introduce afavourable mechanism to support the industry in its effort to repay 120trillion VND worth of corporate bonds in 2023 and 110 trillion VND in 2024./.
VNA
