Vietnam’s property market unlikely to see crisis in the next two years

According to Phan Truong Son, head of the Housing and Property Development Division under the Ho Chi Minh City Construction Department, a property crisis in unlikely during the next two years since the supply of houses in the first half of this year was lower than that of the same period last year.

Around 9,700 units of all grades were launched to the market in the first half of the year, compared to 16,400 units in the same period last year.

“The number of apartments for sale has been quite stable while the fever seen in land plots in some outskirt areas of the city has been due to the development of infrastructure such as first metro route, the Long Thanh – Dau Giay expressway, Long Thanh Airport, Cat Lai Bridge and many other ring roads that have been constructed around the city,” Son said.

Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, said that this fever in land plots resulting in a price hike occurred in two segments from the end of 2016 until May this year, particularly in the three proposed Special Economic Zones. However recently this fever in land plot sales has settled.

According to Chau, a crisis real estate situation occurs under certain conditions such as sudden development of the economy, loosening policies from the government on credit management, a big gap between supply and demand and an increase of speculators.

“These factors have so far not occured in Vietnam so it’s unlikely there will be a crisis situation in the near future until at least 2019,” Chau said.

In reality, during the last four decades Vietnam’s economy has experienced a crisis roughly every ten years.