Shocked by housing prices in Ho Chi Minh City, nearly 600 million VND per square meter

Sky-high prices

Mr. Tran Hoang Nam, a real estate broker in the central area of ​​Ho Chi Minh City, said that he is selling a 2-bedroom apartment, 79 square meters in area, at the Sea building of the Grand Marina Saigon project on Ton Duc Thang Street, District 1. This apartment is being offered for sale at 38.5 billion VND, or more than 480 million VND/square meter.

According to Mr. Nam, this is an apartment on the 21st floor with a direct view of the Saigon River. The owner is selling the apartment for about 5.5 billion VND lower than the market price to recover capital. If you buy it for investment, you will need to wait 1-2 years, at which time this apartment will have the potential to increase in price again.

“The houses here are all priced at nearly half a billion VND/m2, so the time for price increases will be longer than other projects,” said Mr. Nam.

According to Mr. Nam, if you have better financial resources, you can consider apartments at The Spirit Of Saigon project located on Pham Ngu Lao Street, District 1. Apartments at this project are being offered for sale at a price of more than 580 million VND/m2. If your financial resources are not enough, you can buy an apartment at Lancaster Legacy project located on Nguyen Trai Street, District 1 for only 230 million VND/m2.

In addition to the above projects, some other luxury projects in the center of Ho Chi Minh City also have prices of hundreds of millions of VND/m2. Typically, apartments at The Opera Residence building of The Metropole Thu Thiem project, Thu Duc City are being offered for sale at prices ranging from 260 - 280 million VND/m2. A 2-bedroom, 75 m2 apartment here is being offered for sale at a price of about 21 billion VND.

Or the Zeit River Thu Thiem project, Thu Duc City, is being offered for sale at prices ranging from 170 - 200 million VND/m2. The Grand Manhattan project located on Co Giang Street, District 1, is also being offered for sale at prices ranging from 120 - 130 million VND/m2.

Ms. Nguyen Khanh Linh (residing on Tran Hung Dao Street, District 1) said that because her family is large, she and her husband are planning to buy an apartment to live separately.

Linh and her husband planned to buy an apartment in the city center to be closer to their parents and to have a more convenient commute to work. However, the price of apartments in the central area of ​​Ho Chi Minh City is too high, making it impossible for the family to buy one despite their average income.

“My husband and I have a total monthly income of about 70 million VND. We have saved 2 billion VND. If we buy a 2-bedroom apartment in the city center, it will cost about 9 billion VND. Our savings are not enough to pay the initial 30%.”,Ms. Linh said.

According to Ms. Linh, in the future, the couple will have to buy an apartment in District 4, District 10 or Phu Nhuan so that housing prices are more affordable.

Low liquidity, only for the rich

Mr. Nguyen Duy Thanh, General Director of Global Home Management Company, said that currently, Ho Chi Minh City mainly develops high-rise housing projects in the central area. The new land price list has increased sharply, leading to an increase in the cost of implementing high-rise projects. The method of calculating taxes and fees for projects has also changed in an upward direction. Therefore, the central area of ​​the city continuously has new price steps.

“Although housing prices are continuously increasing, liquidity in luxury and super luxury projects is quite slow. However, investors have carefully calculated their business strategies and clearly understand where their customer base is,” said Mr. Thanh.

According to Mr. Phan Cong Chanh, General Director of Phu Vinh Group - a real estate expert in Ho Chi Minh City, potential customers of luxury projects are mainly overseas Vietnamese, foreigners or really rich Vietnamese. The income of these people can be up to billions of VND/month.

Mr. Chanh said that the reason why luxury projects have such high prices is because these projects are always in a diamond position, and the partners participating in the project are all at the top of their field. Therefore, the project always wears a "coat" of class and wealth, affirming the position of the homeowner. However, the liquidity of these projects is not high.

“Investors always research and develop such rich residential areas so that the owners can assert themselves. I observe that the buyers of these projects are often among the 50,000 richest people in Vietnam, meaning they only account for 0.05% of the population,” said Mr. Chanh.

Mr. Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA), shared that currently, the supply of new apartments on the market is mainly high-end and super luxury products. Apartments priced at over 1 million USD are increasing, while affordable housing is disappearing. The real estate market is in an inverted pyramid state, leading to unstable and unsustainable development.

According to Mr. Chau, HoREA is working with relevant ministries, sectors and agencies to remove obstacles and difficulties to develop the affordable housing segment and social housing for people with real housing needs. This also contributes to realizing the Project of 1 million social housing units for low-income people that the Party, National Assembly and Government have been vigorously implementing in recent times.