Selling apartments for big profits, struggling to buy new apartments

Mr. Dang Duy and his wife have just sold an apartment of nearly 65 square meters at the Dai Kim Building project (Hoang Mai, Hanoi) for 33 million VND/square meter, more than double the purchase price 6 years ago.

“Due to the addition of more people and changes in work, my family needs to move to an apartment in Cau Giay area, Nam Tu Liem. With more than 2.1 billion VND from selling the apartment, plus about 1 billion VND in savings, my wife and I are still struggling to find a new house to buy,” said Mr. Duy.

Mr. Duy said that his family looked at the prices of some projects in Cau Giay and Nam Tu Liem, which were selling for 55-90 million VND/m2. To buy a 2-bedroom apartment, they would have to spend at least 4-7 billion VND.

Even an old apartment with an area of ​​over 30 square meters in Cau Giay district is being offered for sale at a price of 2.5 billion VND, equivalent to nearly 90 million VND/m2. The owner said that this apartment has an area of ​​over 30 square meters but the usable area is up to nearly 100 square meters, if calculated based on the price of the usable area, it is about 30 million VND/m2.

Currently, Mr. Duy and his wife are still renting a house to continue looking for an apartment and calculating new options as apartment prices in Hanoi tend to increase and show no signs of "cooling down".

It is not uncommon for apartment prices to increase in the past few years, with homeowners making huge profits of several hundred thousand to billions of dong in many projects in Hanoi. However, finding a new apartment to buy is also difficult when most projects, from old to new, have skyrocketed in price.

Mr. Cong Minh said that in 2016, he bought an apartment in an apartment project in An Khanh commune, Hoai Duc district for 13 million VND/m2. Up to now, the market price is 30-32 million VND/m2.

In 2019, Ms. Thu Hue bought an apartment at Eco Lake View apartment building for 27 million VND/m2. Now, after 4 years, the apartment price has increased to 40-42 million VND/m2.

At the project, Ecogreen City, the apartment price in 2020 was around 30 million VND/m2, but now it has increased to 39-40 million VND/m2...

High-end segment dominates, price continues to increase

According to the Hanoi apartment market in the third quarter, the Ministry of Construction said that the average selling price of apartments opened for sale in the primary market increased by nearly 7% quarter-on-quarter, 14% year-on-year and reached about VND50.8 million/m2.

The Ministry of Construction assessed that the price adjustment has been on an upward trend due to the overwhelming proportion of new supply in the high-end segment (over 90%). Along with that, some investors have adjusted prices upward and opened for sale additional inventory on higher floors.

In the secondary market, the average apartment selling price maintained its upward trend from the previous quarter, reaching about VND32 million/m2, up 2.7% quarter-on-quarter and 0.8% year-on-year.

All districts in Hanoi recorded secondary selling prices in the third quarter increasing compared to the second quarter, in which Dong Da, Thanh Xuan, Tay Ho, Nam Tu Liem and Gia Lam districts increased by over 3%.

Mr. Phuc Anh, director of a real estate trading floor in Ha Dong (Hanoi), said that apartment prices are continuously increasing despite the difficult real estate market. Due to limited supply while real demand is increasing, apartment prices, despite increasing, will continue to increase in the near future.

“In the future, primary apartments will also record high prices because investors have to optimize profits when all costs are pushed up. Buying apartments is becoming increasingly difficult when there are still very few new projects and people's income is limited, the increase in income cannot keep up with the increase in housing prices,” said Mr. Phuc Anh.

According to Mr. Anh, at this time, besides the convenience factors, buyers are more interested in price and payment policy. Therefore, projects with reduced prices and good payment policies will sell quickly. However, many home buyers have not yet taken out a loan to buy because they are still concerned about interest rates.