Quitting job, leaving home to trade land, young wife lost everything and is still in debt

The older sister collected 12 million VND and gave it to her younger sister with the message "this is the last time". Before that, the younger sister had borrowed from her many times, totaling nearly 100 million VND, with no hope of getting it back.

"A lifetime of money is not worth the profit of a plot of land"

Ms. Phuong Hao, 38 years old, living in Binh Tan, Ho Chi Minh City, bitterly told the story of her sister, 4 years younger than her, who won big in the land fever at the end of 2021, but is now in debt, losing money, losing her job, and losing her whole family in the land fever.

Rushing into the land fever, the young wife lost her job, husband and children (Illustration photo: HN).

Ha, Hao's younger sister, is an accountant at a factory in District 7. Her family is happy and she and her husband have a child under 3 years old. At the end of 2021, after a few days of buying a coffee plantation plot in Lam Dong from an acquaintance, Ha plunged into the land trading business.

She submitted a resignation letter from the place where she had worked for many years, left her husband and children behind, and went to Lam Dong with a group of friends to trade land, despite the efforts of her husband and relatives to stop and advise her. She also invited her husband to join, pressuring him to sell the social housing apartment where the family was living to get capital to invest in land.

With that "extra blow", Ha's marriage really broke down. She left her apartment in Saigon to her husband and gave him custody of her children, without any dispute.

In March 2022, on the winning streak, Ha collected all the money, 6 billion VND, mobilized more relatives, borrowed more money from outside and borrowed nearly 4 billion from the bank, and poured it all into land.

She held two plots of land, one in Lam Dong, one in Long An, with the belief that she would quickly "change hands" and make a big haul. Ha also excitedly bragged to her sisters in the family that after this trip, she would rebuild in her hometown and take the whole family to Korea... to eat spicy noodles.

At that time, Ms. Hao and a few people warned Ha to be careful not to fall into the trap, but all the advice at that time was ineffective. Ha criticized people for not understanding anything about land, that land prices were only going up, forming a new price range, and could not decrease.

After a short time, Ms. Hao's sister fell into panic when there were no more waves to "catch" both capital and interest as planned. Initially, someone offered to pay the same price or a little lower, but unfortunately, Ha tried to hold on, not knowing that the real estate market would freeze.

Ha and many other land brokers are rushing to sell, accepting billions of dong in losses, but at this time, there are no buyers, let alone buyers.

Ha had to shoulder tens of millions of dong in interest each month, and creditors came to her house. She put the land up for sale at just over half the price she had paid when it was hot, hoping to get some money back to pay off her debt, but she still couldn't sell it. A plot was later transferred at a cheap price to pay off a creditor.

When the land market is "hot", people rush to become "brokers" (Photo: Xuan Sinh).

Ms. Hao said that her sister is currently unemployed, homeless, and her family members do not know exactly where she is hiding. She only texts her family when she needs to borrow money to pay bank interest, and her current debt is considered "default" because she cannot afford to pay it.

"Many times the creditors came to my parents' house to find Ha to collect the debt. My parents were old and sick because of their daughter. They were both angry and worried that my sister would think of doing something stupid," Ms. Hao confided.

Ms. Hao's sister is one of many people who jumped into the land fever since the end of 2021. In the frenzy of "a lifetime's work is not equal to the profit from a plot of land", there was a time when from the city to the countryside, many office workers, teachers, technology engineers, businessmen... quit their jobs to trade land.

300,000 "land brokers", only 30,000 people have practice certificates

The land fever not only causes conflicts between relatives and sisters in the family because of disputes. Many "land brokers" are also caught up in the deadlocked spiral of "holding on to land during the fever to make money" and then... going bankrupt.

At the end of 2021, listening to his friends, Nguyen Van K., an IT employee in Ho Chi Minh City, quit his job to trade land and quickly fell into crisis. This person had to sell the house he was living in to pay off his debt, but it was nothing compared to the amount of money he had called on everyone to contribute capital and the debt of tens of billions of dong.

Hiding from debt, Mr. K. lives alone in District 12 after his wife took their child and left. With such a situation, psychological instability, and having been out of work for a while, the male employee no longer has the confidence to find another job.

Mr. K. texted some friends saying he could not pay, some people he did not dare meet because he had invited them to invest capital, contribute money... pushing them into difficulties. Stuck and in crisis, Mr. K. admitted that he had thought about death many times.

Mr. Tran Duc Phuong, working in the real estate sector in Ho Chi Minh City, said that there is a reality in Vietnam that many people working in real estate are amateurs, often called "land brokers".

Many people are unemployed and cannot find a job in their field, so they go into real estate with the temporary mindset of making money day by day. The recent land fever has seen many people quit their official jobs to trade land with the mentality of snatching and making quick money.

Professionally trained real estate personnel in Vietnam are still very limited, many companies are forced to recruit personnel from abroad.

According to the Real Estate Brokers Association, there are about 300,000 people working in the real estate brokerage industry nationwide, but only about 30,000 have a practice certificate.

Only 1/10 real estate brokers in Vietnam have a practice certificate (Illustration photo).

According to Mr. Phuong, any profession or job to be effective requires workers to have professional knowledge, investment, and dedication, not to mention the very complicated real estate sector.

For those who fall into debt, lose their jobs, and sometimes even lose their family happiness because of bankrupt land trading, Mr. Phuong said that this is a lesson for everyone. A lesson about improving the work you are doing, cherishing the happiness you have, and controlling greed and avoiding the mentality of snatching and eating quickly in whatever you do.

Source link: https://dantri.com.vn/lao-dong-viec-lam/bo-viec-bo-nha-di-buon-dat-vo-tre-mat-trang-con-no-ngap-dau-20230725120823610.htm