Apartment supply is forecast to be flat and improve in the second half of the year. However, apartment prices may continue to increase due to the difference in supply and demand. Coal buyers accumulate enough money, home prices rise.
Demand is available but supply difficulties
Having worked in Ho Chi Minh City for more than a decade, Mr. Thanh and his wife (35 years old, Ha Nam) wanted to buy an apartment to live in but could not do so. Partly because he did not have enough money, partly because he wanted to buy a house near the center for convenient work, children to go to school, but the price was too high. Recently, when bank lending rates fell, he and his wife rekindled their plans to buy a house but were still apprehensive because of rising house prices.
Thanh and his wife may have been among those who participated in a Batdongsan.com.vn survey earlier this year, when interest in condominiums in Ho Chi Minh City increased by 59 percent and Hanoi by 71 percent. The report also revealed that up to 65% of respondents plan to buy real estate in the next 1 year and condominiums are prioritized for ownership.
Although the demand for people with apartments is constantly increasing, on the contrary, the new supply of this segment is the lowest in the past 10 years in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Trang Le, Director of Research and Consulting at JLL Vietnam, said that if in 2017-2018, the supply of new apartments in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi can reach about 40,000 units per year, by 2022-2023, this number will only be about 10,000 units. The sharp decrease in supply puts pressure on investors because they need a large enough source of goods to maintain the operation of the business.
Along with that, the number of transactions in the market over the past 10 years has also decreased due to the economic downturn. She pointed out that the number of units offered for sale in both major cities may reach 70-80% by 2023, but most of them are concentrated in the mid-end segment. The market still has inventory in high-segment apartment products, not suitable for the needs of the majority of buyers.
Ms. Trang Le said that the demand for apartment ownership of people is still very high but is located in the affordable and mid-end segment. However, in fact, the land fund in the central areas of big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City is not much, mainly to develop high-end and luxury products.
Mid-end, affordable products have drifted to the suburbs or satellite cities. This natural development to take place conveniently requires better infrastructure connectivity between the residence and the workplace. In the second half of this year, the supply of the apartment market will improve.
In the same view, Ms. Giang Huynh, Deputy Director of Savills Vietnam, said that in the period of 2024-2026, the number of apartments priced at VND 2-5 billion is increasingly scarce, the supply is concentrated mainly in the segment of VND 5-10 billion / unit. Therefore, home buyers in Ho Chi Minh City may switch to buying products in nearby areas such as Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Long An at more affordable prices.
CBRE Vietnam’s report shows that in 2023, the new supply of apartments will mainly appear in mega-urban projects in the West and East of Hanoi and East of Ho Chi Minh City. This year, new supply is expected to continue to come from these regions but is still limited compared to buyer demand.
Ms. Duong Thuy Dung – Senior Director of CBRE Vietnam – said that the interest rate level is in the direction of stabilizing again, while policy and legal factors are in the roadmap to be amended and approved, ensuring synchronization and consistency will contribute to improving market confidence, thereby helping the market recover this year.
Prices will continue to rise but there is a shortage of affordable apartments
In the latest market report, the Ministry of Construction said that in the fourth quarter of 2023, apartments will continue the upward trend in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, especially in the central area. The market has almost no affordable apartment segment projects (price below 25 million VND/m2), mainly the mid-end segment (price 25-50 million VND) eligible for capital mobilization and transactions.
In Hanoi, some projects have an average price increase of 3-4% in Thanh Xuan, Ha Dong, Hoang Mai and Tu Liem districts. In Ho Chi Minh City, the price increase is about 3.6-4.4%.
The Ministry of Construction said that selling prices are still anchored at a high level, especially in Hanoi when recording a rapid increase in primary prices this year. The main reason is the overwhelming proportion of open supply of the high-end segment. In terms of the total supply of new launches in 2023, the number of high-end apartments accounts for 75% in Hanoi and 84% in Ho Chi Minh City.
On the other hand, the mid-end segment with a price more suitable for the pockets of the majority of people only accounts for a small proportion, while the affordable segment has completely disappeared in 2 markets in the past few years.
Nguyen Van Dinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Real Estate Brokers (VARS), said that the supply of real estate, including apartments, will hardly have a breakthrough. In 2024, the selling price of primary apartments is forecast to continue to increase by an average of about 3-8%.
In addition, Mr. Dinh said that the apartment segment in big cities will continue to increase steadily because the supply has not yet adapted to the needs of customers and investors.
Not to mention that most of the upcoming projects in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are located in districts far from the center, where the land fund is still abundant. The constantly improving infrastructure will continue to push the price level of these projects even higher in the future.
