Social housing projects in HCM City. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — More support is needed to attract investors into the development of social housing to rent to low-income workers.

Currently, demand for social housing is very high, especially in urban areas, big cities and provinces with high industrialisation rates. But some projects are unoccupied despite the shortage of social housing, due to workers' lack of financial ability and the fact that many do not need to buy their own home.

Most workers rent instead of owning their houses, as they either can't afford to — or do not need to — purchase properties.

According to a survey conducted by the HCM City Labour Confederation, about 60 per cent of surveyed workers only require rental housing, paying around VNĐ1.5 million per month.

The workers also said that they plan to work for 10 to 15 years in localities before returning to their homes outside of urban centres.

Experts said that low-income workers need to rent social housing instead of owning houses for the long term. One proposed solution is to build more social housing projects for rent. This requires more supportive policies to attract more investors into the rental housing segment.

A project to construct 244 rental apartments in Hà Nam province is currently drawing interest from workers looking to rent homes.

Economic expert Đinh Trọng Thịnh said that social housing projects like the one in Hà Nam are promising.

Property developers could learn lessons from this project to build more social housing to meet the needs of workers, he said.

However, investors are not interested in building rental housing for workers and low-income people, because even developing social housing projects for sale is unattractive for them, according to Thịnh.

Trần Khánh Quang, General Director of Việt An Hòa Real Estate Company, said that there are not many businesses developing social housing projects because of problems in administrative procedures or low profits.

Therefore, according to Quang, new policies are necessary to incentivise developing social housing both for rent and for sale.

Lê Hữu Nghĩa, General Director of Lê Thành Production and Trading Company Ltd., said that for social housing — and particularly in the rental segment — incentives from the State play a decisive role.

Low profits from developing social housing do not encourage businesses to invest in this segment. Administrative procedures are also big problems for the businesses, Nghĩa said. — VNS