After the rent increased by 50%, Huy invited his friend to live with him, sharing a space of less than 6 square meters deep in Pham Tuan Tai street, Cau Giay district.
Huy is from Son La and currently works as a motorbike taxi driver. He has rented this room for over a year. He said that last year, the room price was only about 1.3 million VND, so Huy could pay for it by himself. At the beginning of this year, the landlord added some fire-fighting equipment, so the room price increased to 2 million VND, not including service fees, electricity and water costs about 400,000 VND per person.
Huy said that many people in the boarding house had moved out after the landlord raised the rent. He found another way, inviting friends to live with him to split the rent. Huy said that his income had dropped in recent months, and the rent had increased by more than 50%, making it a big burden. Meanwhile, the young man drove a motorbike taxi from morning to night, "just needing a place to sleep". The boarding house was located in the center, convenient for living, so he did not want to move.
Two young men "crammed into a room divided into matchboxes", Huy said he had to accept a cheaper rent, about 1.4 million VND per person.
Similarly, Ngoc Tam, a first-year student, has just posted an ad for a rental room of less than 5 square meters located deep in Chinh Kinh Street, Thanh Xuan District. Tam's room has a window but is the narrowest of the four other rooms on the same floor (8 square meters wide). In a space of only 5 square meters, the owner can still arrange a table, refrigerator, wardrobe, pallet bed, and the kitchen and bathroom are shared with the entire floor.
Just entering school last year, Tam rented this room for 1.6 million VND, not including electricity and water. After the one-year contract ended, the landlord wanted to increase the rent to 1.9 million VND, and electricity from 3,800 VND to 4,000 VND per number. "Including electricity and water, each month it costs 2.4 million VND. With this amount of money, if I move out and share a room with a friend, I will get a room three times bigger," Tam said.
According to records, in the first 7 months of this year, the type of super small rooms (under 10 m2), which is the cheapest rental segment, also increased in price by 15-20% compared to last year. Some buildings equipped with additional fire protection equipment even increased by 30-50% compared to last year.
The rental price of micro-rooms has the strongest increase among the rental segments, 1.5-2 times higher than that of mini apartments and project apartments. Since the beginning of the year, many landlords have also increased the rental price of mini apartments, fluctuating by 10-15% compared to last year, concentrated in central districts such as Cau Giay, Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung, Thanh Xuan... For the apartment segment, the rental price increased by about 7-8% in the first half of this year, according to Batdongsan.
The increase in rental prices for micro-rooms is 2-3 times higher than the growth in income of workers. A recent report from the General Statistics Office shows that in the first 6 months of 2024, the average monthly income of workers was 7.5 million VND, an increase of 7.4%, equivalent to an increase of 519,000 VND compared to the same period last year.
The rate of increase in rental prices varies between types of small rental rooms. In particular, the area of central districts has the strongest price increase, including single-family houses with many rooms of 20-25 m2, divided into many rooms, sleeping boxes of 4-5 m2 or newly built houses, divided into many super small rooms for rental business. The common point of these two types of rental rooms is that they are located deep in the alley, the rental price is 1.8-2 million VND per room, an increase of more than 30% compared to the beginning of 2023.
A popular type of super small room in the suburbs far from the center is the cheap worker dormitory, ranging from 500,000-800,000 VND per month. These are dormitories that have been operating for decades, with old designs so the area is usually around 8-10 m2. The location is deep in the alleys in communes and towns near industrial parks. Because they have been operating for more than ten years and are currently in a state of disrepair, the rental price has not increased as much as in the inner city, only increasing by about 50,000-100,000 VND per room per month.
Mr. Lai, 60 years old, the owner of an 8-room boarding house in Kim Chung commune, Dong Anh district, has just increased the rent to 500,000 VND per room. Previously, he kept the rent at 450,000 VND per room for many years. Recently, according to him, "prices have been climbing rapidly, so it is difficult to keep the price as it was a few years ago."
Independent real estate consultant Le Quoc Kien said that rental rooms with an area of less than 10 square meters have developed rapidly in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City since 2018-2019. This is a period of booming demand for renting entire houses, then renovating and renting them out. Many rental businesses have sought to increase their revenue by "dividing" rental units. For example, a 16 square meter room can be rented for 4 million VND. If divided into 4 sleeping boxes with a price of 1.6-1.8 million VND per slot, revenue can increase nearly twice.
However, since the beginning of the year, the rental price of these types of rooms has been increasing, according to Mr. Kien, due to the impact of the price increase of individual houses in alleys. In addition, after many fire incidents in boarding houses and mini apartments that caused serious consequences, many landlords have increased their investment in fire prevention and fighting equipment and this cost is included in the rental price to compensate. This has caused the price of boarding rooms to increase rapidly since the end of last year.
Sharing the same view, Mr. Dinh Minh Tuan, Director of Batdongsan channel, said that the demand for this type of property is still high, coming from a group with low-average income or low housing requirements, just needing a place to sleep at night. While the price of houses in the inner city is increasingly expensive, homeowners will make the most of the available space to rent to many people.
However, experts warn that dividing a house into small, narrow sleeping areas increases population density, potentially posing many risks to fire safety and security. An effective solution, according to Mr. Dinh Minh Tuan, is to increase the supply of social housing for rent. Because workers, laborers from other provinces, students, poor households... are also the target of social housing. This segment can help workers rent at low cost, with full facilities and ensuring security and safety.
TH (Synthesis)