Increase the attractiveness of real estate

Mr. Mauro Gasparotti, Director of Savills Hotels, analyzed that the market is still shifting and investors need to accept changes and new trends to maintain competitiveness. The market is increasingly competitive in terms of selling price, so investors always need to have new approaches as well as improve products and in the current context. The green building factor, aiming at sustainable values, is gradually becoming an indispensable factor in project planning and development. Previously, when the market did not clearly understand the value of green buildings, buyers often found it difficult to convince when having to pay more for these "invisible" values.

But now, the market landscape has changed, buyers are increasingly demanding and willing to pay more for products that are carefully developed and meet sustainable criteria. This helps investors improve profit margins when the project can convey well and bring the right product to buyers - Mr. Mauro Gasparotti commented.

In particular, if implemented well, green building projects can help improve operating costs after being put into operation. Therefore, the benefits of green buildings are the result of the resonance of two factors, helping products achieve better selling prices while also optimizing operating costs compared to conventional traditional products.

When developing green buildings, investors need to consider not only the benefits of marketing and project communication, but also the financial efficiency of long-term project operations. However, promoting sustainable development requires a roadmap because this requires a change in the awareness of the whole community, not just from a single campaign.

For example, from daily tasks, such as waste disposal. In European countries, waste classification will be carried out by each household at home before the waste is collected and collected completely, unlike in Vietnam - Savills experts cited. These small actions are necessary conditions for bigger changes.

Therefore, Mr. Mauro Gasparotti believes that Vietnam will need more time and resources to form habits towards a sustainable development path. Among them, it is possible to consider dedicating more resources to increase communication about the urgency of the sustainable development journey to raise people's awareness of this issue. Specifically, Vietnam can start from a few areas, for example, promoting activities towards sustainable development and environmental conservation in Con Dao, so that this place becomes a typical case for other destinations - the expert recommends.

Savills commented that each project needs a certain amount of time to plan and construct before it can be put into use. Therefore, the current situation is that most of the real estate projects and works in operation were planned and designed before the COVID-19 pandemic, which was the period when most investors in Vietnam mainly focused on scale, and did not pay much attention to sustainability and the quality of the project experience. Therefore, green and sustainable factors have not received much attention.

However, in the next real estate cycle, Savills experts predict that sustainability factors in real estate projects will be more evident as many investors increasingly focus on integrating green, environmentally friendly factors right from the project planning and implementation process.

Mr. Mauro Gasparotti said that sustainability takes different forms and plays different roles in each type of real estate. In the hotel industry, sustainability is becoming an indispensable factor as tourists are increasingly aware of the impact of tourism activities on the environment, and this promotes the demand for sustainable products that minimize negative impacts on the environment.

In addition, attention should be paid to the sustainable development of the locality, especially in coastal destinations such as Phu Quoc and Cam Ranh. The goal is for the locality to develop tourism activities while preserving community values ​​and maintaining environmental quality and landscape.

At the same time, with commercial real estate including offices and retail leasing, more and more tenants, especially foreign enterprises, also require buildings that meet green and sustainable criteria. In the context of limited supply of projects meeting the criteria, this group of tenants may be willing to pay higher prices for projects that have achieved green certification.

Particularly for residential real estate, investors, especially international investors, are also paying more attention to sustainable development factors, focusing on wellness experiences in project planning and development. This is not simply a marketing highlight for sales, but the sustainability factor will become an important criterion that the market is looking for.

Currently, in the hospitality business, hotel operators, especially luxury chains, are making more efforts in the journey of sustainable development such as projects of Six Senses, Mandarin Oriental and Zannier Hotels. These hotel chains always focus on bringing sustainable elements and preserving the community characteristics in the project area. This is also one of the models that other projects can refer to in the journey towards green and sustainable development.

Sustainable development and green buildings are currently hot topics in the real estate development sector. Compared to other countries, the number of green buildings in Vietnam is still quite limited. Therefore, there are still many aspects to learn and implement to be able to progress quickly in this sustainable development journey.