HANOI: Property experts forecast that the real estate market of Việt Nam would continue to be on a solid growth next year, driven by the improved macro-economy and policies. Deputy Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management Trần Kim Chung at an online conference held on Thursday pointed out that there were three factors which would fuel the property market development.
First was the economic stability. “In 2017, the forecast is positive that the economy would continue to post stable growth with better control of the Government over inflation and budget deficit,” Chung said. Besides, the quick handling of bad debts coupled with the anticipated increase in capital inflows in the market, as the property market was shining as an attractive investment channel, would promote the development of the realty market in 2017, according to Chung.
Improvements in the State management and the legal framework would help enhance market transparency, which would create conditions to encourage both developers and buyers to be more active in the market, Chung added. However, capitals remained the biggest concern of the property market which still relied heavily in banking loans, worth roughly 70 per cent, Chung said, while adding that it was important to create channels to raise capitals for the market such as real estate investment funds.
Chung said the property market would remain an attractive investment channel, compared to gold or savings. According to Trần Ngọc Quang, general secretary of the Việt Nam Real Estate Association, the government’s policy of allowing foreigners to own houses in the country was making Việt Nam one of the countries with the most open policies of attracting foreign investment in the realty market.
Quang said that foreigners were showing growing interests in the real estate market. However, more efforts were needed to improve the market transparency and investment climate to attract more foreign capitals and the market needed to develop more products appropriate to foreigners’ demand, especially those living and working in the country, he added. Christopher Fossick, CEO of John Lang LaSalle in Singapore and Southeast Asia, was quoted by bizlive.vn as saying that he did not see signs of a market bubble forming at least by 2020.
Although there were fears that there was a surplus in the high-end segment but supply in this segment was slowing down, he said. He added that housing prices were also on a stable trend. There was significant room for investments in the medium segment, he said. However, land prices needed to be more reasonable to encourage developers to pour investments in this segment, he said. CBRE Việt Nam previously also forecast that the property market of Việt Nam would continue to post growth in the next decades, driven by a young population with high housing demand, significant foreign capitals as well as improved infrastructure. However, experts urged close watch to be placed on the market developments to ensure the market liquidity and supply to meet demand.
