Time to buy apartments: experts say

Apartments in the Trung Hoa-Nhan Chinh area, west of Ha Noi were built by Vinaconex. — VNA/VNS Photo Tuan Anh

HA NOI — Today's domestic real estate market was affording buyers a good opportunity to buy offering housing, according to experts.

CBRE Viet Nam reported that the improving macro-economics fundamentals had finally seen residential buyers begin to explore the market for opportunities. Enquiries for residential purchases are rising, but to date there had been no wide-scale increase in transactions.

"Obviously buying a residential property, be it for investment or personal occupation, is a huge decision and financial commitment – as such we are now seeing buyers looking, but not touching. We expect this increase in enquiries to translate to an uptick in sales around the turn of the year, should the economy continue at the current pace," said Marc Towns-end, CBRE Viet Nam Managing Director.

"We already saw a surge in the number of mortgage applications in a surveyed bank from March 2012, around the time when the first interest rate cut from 14 per cent down to 13 per cent occurred," he said.

"Like any other real estate sector, the residential market functions in cycles. In the previous market cycle, inflation peaked in mid-2008 and bottomed in mid-2009, followed by a market recovery late 2009. The current cycle is expected to be similar with inflation peaking in mid-2011 and reaching a new low in mid-2012. If history repeats itself, we should expect market recovery in late 2012 or early 2013," he said.

DTJ, the real estate agent for Indochina Plaza Ha Noi, said a number of apartment buyers at the Indochina Plaza had increased after investors signed a co-operation contract with Vietcombank to provide financial support under a trade promotion programme.

After just two days, the company had made VND50 billion (US$2.3 million) in revenue from apartment sales, said a representative from DTJ.

The representative said demand for housing had increased, even in the luxury apartment sector. However, people had suffered the impacts of the economic downturn and were more inclined to wait until prices fell further, so transactions had fallen.

Tran Ngoc Anh, Viglacera Corporation deputy director, said although the local property market was struggling, Viglacera was having some success by offering preferential policies to customers.

If investors shared the financial difficulties with buyers, liquidity on the property market would continue to improve, Anh said.

Vu Xuan Thien, deputy director of the Housing and Real Estate Market Management Department, said that trade promotion programmes provided a good opportunity for home-buyers.

Dang Hung Vo, former deputy minister of Natural Resources and Environment, said it was a buyer's market, with prices having fallen from 30-40 per cent in some cases.

Vo said that if people had real demand for a home, now was a good time to buy, but those looking to buy as an investment they would struggle because it was difficult to access bank loans.

Careful consideration was needed before investing in the property market, because the economy remained unstable and there were many potential risks, he added. — VNS