How long will the housing supply in Ho Chi Minh City be 'thirsty'?

In 2025, Ho Chi Minh City is forecast to continue to be "thirsty" for housing supply, despite the government's efforts to remove legal obstacles for projects. When will Ho Chi Minh City stop being "thirsty" for housing?

Inside a commercial housing project under construction in District 7 (HCMC) - Photo: NGOC HIEN

At the seminar "Real Estate 2025: The Road to a New Decade of Growth" organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Business Association (HUBA) on December 18, Ms. Duong Thuy Dung - Senior Director of CBRE Vietnam - said that the supply of apartments in Ho Chi Minh City in 2025 will increase insignificantly, only about 9,000 apartments.

This is a low level compared to previous stages when launching to the market about 30,000-40,000 units/year.

The number of houses for sale in Ho Chi Minh City is sluggish.

According to Ms. Dung, in 2025, the whole country will have about 40,000 apartments launched on the market, Ho Chi Minh City will only account for about 20% of the market basket and this situation will continue until 2026 when the city will only have about 11,000 new houses for sale.

Ms. Dung commented that the current supply trend of the market is repeating the cycle of the past 10 years. 2024 is a pivotal year when laws related to the real estate sector are passed, 2025 will be the first year of a new development cycle.

Therefore, Ms. Dung believes that it will take at least 2 more years for the market to enter a phase of acceleration and supply explosion like the previous phase, when supply will improve.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pham Dang Ho - Head of Housing Development and Real Estate Market Department of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction - said that about 10,000 social housing units will be approved for investment, about 7,000 units will be put up for bidding to select investors and about 3,000 units will be invested from public capital in 2025.

According to Mr. Ho, Ho Chi Minh City is determined to develop social housing and propose solutions for bidding for land funds, using land funds registered by enterprises and public investment to increase supply. In addition, Mr. Ho also forecasts that real estate prices in Ho Chi Minh City are expected to continue to increase slightly in 2025 due to rising land prices.

"The increase will not be too large because the supply is not abundant and construction permits take a long time. Most of the new supply is still focused on the high-end and luxury segments, making it difficult for prices to decrease," Mr. Ho said.

Removing legal obstacles: "Medicine" not strong enough for Ho Chi Minh City housing market

At the seminar, experts said that Ho Chi Minh City has a gap between supply and demand when the supply of real estate, especially low-cost housing, has not yet met the market demand. Meanwhile, real estate prices continue to increase, causing difficulties for people with average and low incomes.

In addition, despite improvements, administrative procedures are still complicated and time-consuming. Therefore, experts all agree that there should be policies to promote housing prices in line with demand and speed up administrative procedures, and there should be a "medicine" strong enough to remove procedural obstacles.

Mr. Le Huu Nghia - General Director of Le Thanh Company - said that housing prices will be difficult to decrease if housing investment procedures, including social housing, take years. Therefore, Mr. Nghia suggested that there should be solutions to speed up administrative procedures, and carry out the procedures in parallel instead of doing them sequentially, which takes a lot of time.

Mr. Nghia believes that if the project licensing process is accelerated, unnecessary administrative procedures are reduced, and businesses are facilitated in project investment, the housing supply will improve, and Ho Chi Minh City will have less of a "thirst" for housing.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hoa - Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Business Association - said that state agencies need to speed up procedures and remove legal issues, while businesses need to review their business strategies and correctly assess market segments to increase housing supply.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nguon-cung-nha-o-tp-hcm-se-khat-den-bao-gio-2024121818103821.htm