Ms. Ngo Nguyet Ha (District 10) shared, she came to Ho Chi Minh City in 2010 and is working as a clothing trader in the workers’ area. However, in the past 10 years, although she has accumulated in many ways, her family is still living in a rented house.
According to Ms. Ha, house prices increased too quickly. In particular, during the real estate boom, house prices increased even faster, making her family still unable to keep up. When the Covid epidemic broke out, it was thought that house prices would decrease but still increased silently.
“In the past 10 years, my husband’s income has not changed much, after deducting all expenses, I have a few million dong/month left over. I have asked many brokers to help me find affordable apartments and houses. However, many brokers just “shake their heads” and “wail hard” in today’s time, when the lowest apartment is nearly 2 billion dong…!”, Ms. Ha confide.
Similarly, the family of Mr. Le Van Binh (District 8) shared that both he and his wife work as office workers. After receiving a salary increase in 2018, his and his wife’s total income is just over 15 million VND/month. After deducting living expenses and small children, his family saved 5 million VND/month. According to Mr. Binh, with the current income, it is very difficult to buy a house in Ho Chi Minh City.
“I used to inquire about many apartments in the suburbs, but the selling price was over 1.5 billion VND. Many social housing apartments have lower prices but still have to follow procedures. I worked for 5 years but only got an increase. salary is only once, while house prices have jumped by countless numbers in the past 5 years. Now, I find it difficult to buy a house if I win a lottery ticket…”, Mr. Binh said bitterly.
Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA), said that currently in the Ho Chi Minh City market, a 2-bedroom apartment has a price of about 2.5 billion VND, or 35 million VND/m2. This price is considered to be about 20 times higher than the average income of the people. For apartments under 2 billion VND, about 25 – 30 million VND/m2 and social housing is now gradually absent from the market in the past few years.
Land plots and apartments still tend to increase
Despite the impact of the epidemic, house prices in Ho Chi Minh City have quietly increased over the past time, thereby creating many new price milestones. Even the area around Saigon has also increased a lot.
Through studying a number of projects, the Sunshine Continental apartment project (To Hien Thanh street, District 10) is now priced at about 120 million VND/m2; Topaz Elite apartment building (Ta Quang Buu – Cao Lo street, District 8) now costs more than 35 million VND/m2; Central Premium Apartment (Ta Quang Buu Street, District 8) after being handed over the price jumped to 48 million VND/m2.
In District 2, the Paris Hoang Kim project has a selling price of 80 million VND/m2. This price is assessed on par with other high-end apartment projects in Thu Thiem, much higher than other projects in the same area.
Mr. Pham Lam, Chairman of the Board of Directors of DKRA, said that in the past 5 years, house prices increased vertically. In 2015, the price of Grade A apartments was about 45 million VND/m2. However, by 2019, the price of this type of apartment has increased to about 70-120 million VND/m2. As for Grade B apartments, in 2015 the average price is about 21 million VND/m2. But up to this point, the price has increased to about 36 million VND/m2….
As for land plots, in the past 5 years, the price has increased very strongly by more than 100%, in some areas it has increased by more than 200%. It is worth mentioning that the Grade C apartment segment is almost absent from the market. In 2016, the C-segment segment accounted for only about 30%, but by September 2019, it had almost disappeared from the market.