Previously, Ho Chi Minh City also set a target of developing about 93,000 social housing units in the 2020-2025 period to address the housing needs of low-income urban residents. These are all goals considered necessary to meet the housing needs of the people. However, in reality, the implementation of these projects has encountered many difficulties, significantly affecting the overall goal.
(Illustration: Construction Newspaper)
"There is not much social housing and the price is relatively high, many places are not much cheaper than commercial housing. Now we can only access policy banks, but the procedures are extremely strict and difficult. Our chance of buying a house is almost too remote."
"Now commercial banks do not give low-income people preferential treatment, so when we want to borrow, we have to accept very high interest rates. This makes it very difficult to access capital to buy social housing."
"Currently, the current salary is 8 million/month, no overtime, fewer orders, businesses are more difficult, which means workers are also having a hard time, prices are also going up. If you want to buy an apartment or social housing, the loan procedures are very difficult for workers when accessing conditions and loan sources, very difficult. So we hope that when we have an apartment, a place to live, our jobs will be more stable."
These are the opinions, thoughts and aspirations of some people in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City about the story of social housing. It can be seen that the desire to have a stable place to live that fits the family's financial capacity is a very common story of millions of families in urban areas of our country.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Construction, up to now, the whole country has only 275 social housing projects with a scale of about 147,000 apartments completed along with nearly 400 projects with a scale of about 375,000 apartments being implemented. Ho Chi Minh City alone has only 32 social housing projects with 19,102 apartments, 18 worker accommodation projects with a total of 5,514 rooms completed, in addition, there are 9 projects under construction with a scale of 6,383 apartments.
According to Associate Professor Dr. Dinh Trong Thinh - senior lecturer of the Academy of Finance, the huge gap between supply and demand has caused the results of social housing development in our country in recent times to not meet expectations: "Many southern provinces such as Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong have had almost no social housing in recent years. In Hanoi, it has been 2-3 years since there has been a project. Demand is high and supply is low, so lining up to buy is natural. In addition, the regulations on purchasing documents are relatively strict and therefore, to meet the requirements, people have to prepare in advance and spend a lot of time".
Grasping that need, on April 3, 2023, the Government approved the project "investing in building at least 1 million social housing units for low-income people and industrial park workers in the period 2021-2030" .
In Ho Chi Minh City, the city's leaders set a goal that by 2025, about 93,000 affordable houses will reach people in need.
(Illustration: Vietnamnet).
Mr. Le Hoang Chau - Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association said that this policy is necessary and has received the attention of many businesses: "In Ho Chi Minh City alone, there are about 15 corporations and businesses participating in social housing with their own money, buying land, borrowing money, and investing. We cannot force businesses to build low-cost housing, but there are actually many businesses that are aware and want to participate and contribute. We are encouraging businesses to do so."
From the perspective of a business specializing in developing social housing projects, Mr. Le Huu Nghia - Director of Le Thanh Real Estate Company said that although the Government and localities have had policies to develop social housing, in reality, project implementation is still very difficult because of the procedures for approving and adjusting projects as well as the pressure of bank interest rates being quite high: "Waiting for departments and branches to respond to documents takes a long time, sometimes after 6 months, no department or branch responds, so it gets stuck for a whole year. So we have to make a breakthrough here, so that when this department has a document, it must respond within 15 days, if you do not respond, it is considered as approval for the project to continue running. This is the most difficult step at present, so I hope we can make a breakthrough at this step".
To promptly support credit for the target of 1 million social housing units by 2030, the Government and the State Bank have approved a credit package worth VND120,000 billion to lend to investors and home buyers of social housing and worker housing projects with an interest rate of 8.2% for borrowers and 8.7% for investors.
According to Dr. Su Ngoc Khuong - Deputy Director of the Institute of Informatics and Applied Economics, having a credit package with a subsidized interest rate is necessary but still not enough to stimulate the development of social housing: "Why don't we use other tools besides interest rates? Why don't we speed up the approval and implementation of projects to optimize costs, making housing prices cheaper. Currently, we are assigning everything to the bank and I think this tool is not enough. We need to use many different tools from related parties to solve the problem together, but if we keep using individual tools, it will be very difficult to achieve the goal of 1 million apartments by 2030".
Difficulties in project approval and appraisal procedures, planning adjustments, etc. have caused many social housing projects in Ho Chi Minh City in particular and the country in general to be behind schedule or stalled despite having held grand groundbreaking ceremonies beforehand.
Regarding this issue, Dr. Can Van Luc - member of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council further analyzed: "The first thing is extremely important, which is the lack of consistency in viewpoints, understanding and approach. Many people think that social housing today is something that seems like charity, having it is like not having it. The second biggest problem is the mechanism, policy, procedures and implementation. The third problem is planning and land fund, compensation and site clearance are always extremely difficult issues. With these difficulties, it is clearly not easy to achieve the target of 1 million social housing units by 2030 assigned by the Prime Minister".
Don't buy it in the newspaper or on TV.
The fact that Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and many localities have concretized the short- and medium-term housing action program based on the Government's project "investing in building at least 1 million social housing units for low-income people and industrial park workers in the 2021-2030 period" is a very positive signal not only for the construction and real estate sectors but also for millions of low-income urban people.
However, what is happening in reality such as slow project implementation progress, not many new projects announced, no specific instructions to access the 120,000 billion VND credit package, house prices and loan interest rates are still high compared to people's ability to pay... enough to show that the dream of settling down is still too far away.
The policy is in place, and capital sources have begun to be cleared, but the biggest obstacle is the legal system, which is still preventing everything from "getting on track" as expected. Unfortunately, important legal frameworks that have a great influence on the development of housing for low-income people such as the Land Law, Housing Law, Law on Credit Institutions (amended) ... are still only at the second round of comments and cannot be passed at this National Assembly session.
As many experts say, it is not easy to achieve the goal of “1 million houses for low-income people” by 2030. However, no matter how difficult it is, it must be done, because solving people’s housing needs is one of the important pillars to maintain stability, thereby promoting socio-economic development of localities and the country.
To realize the Government's policy and meet the people's need for housing and employment, ministries, branches and local authorities need to be more active in perfecting the institutions and laws on housing for low-income people. There should be policies to call for and attract more investors to participate in developing social housing.
Specify and make transparent the project approval process, actively coordinate with investors to remove obstacles related to planning and land use targets; publicize approval conditions as well as propose interest rates suitable to buyers' incomes...
Workers in general and low-income urban people in particular have been making great contributions to the development of cities. Therefore, their dream of settling down needs to be respected and properly addressed, not just stopped at shouting slogans on TV or in the press.
Huy Hoang (VOV Traffic)
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