Perspective of a condotel project in Phú Quốc Island, Kiên Giang Province is offered on the market. Condotels are expected to be attractive products on the market in the future. — Photo dauthau.vn

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam has great potential to develop the resort market this year end and beyond due to increasing demand and high economic growth.

Experts made the statement at a seminar on new trends and real estate investment opportunities in the second half of this year held in Hà Nội on Wednesday by the CafeLand, a website specialising in information relating to the property market. 

This year could be pivotal for the resort real estate segment, they said.

Dr Trần Đình Thiên, former director of Việt Nam Institute of Economics, said foreign direct investment (FDI) to Việt Nam has increased, boosting demand for investment in industrial and civil real estate. This creates high demand for real estate, including real estate for the tourism sector.

Đặng Hùng Võ, former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, said the total number of tourism properties in Việt Nam is still lower than that in other regional countries that have strong tourism development such as Thailand. Meanwhile, Việt Nam's tourism sector has grown at 30 per cent annually.

While the country does have resort market hotspots like Đà Nẵng and Nha Trang, they will soon be saturated.

In the future, the hotspots are likely to move to other locations such as Quy Nhơn of Bình Định Province and Tuy Hòa of Phú Yên Province. Besides, some other potential points with faster growth include Phan Rang and Phan Thiết of Bình Thuận Province, Võ said.

In the long-term, the supply of condotels in Việt Nam will be unable to exceed demand, according to him.

However at the beginning of 2019, condotel transactions reduced in some localities, likely due to the credit tightening policy for real estate and inadequacy in the legal system for condotels, he said.

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Dương, director of communication and community support at Novaland Group, said regions that wish to develop resort real estate need synchronous development of the tourism sector and transport infrastructure.

For example, Phan Thiết plans to put an international airport into operation in 2022, connecting highways to HCM City. The period travelling from HCM City to Phan Thiết will reduce to one hour and 45 minutes.

She also agreed with financial expert Nguyễn Trí Hiếu’s opinion that the domestic resort real estate market must be developed sustainably to protect the environment and minimise impacts of development on the environment.

Besides that, Hiếu wondered about the legality of resort properties like condotels, especially with secondary investors. Banks are very embarrassed when they receive condotels as a mortgage.

According to Hiếu, condotels are a real estate product for doing business, so all regulations on land or tax should be considered as goods for trading.

He proposed the Government and the National Assembly should quickly resolve legal issues to create favourable conditions for banks in accepting mortgages as condotels while homebuyers are assured of ownership rights.

Regarding legal documents for condotels, Deputy Director of Housing and Real Estate Market Management Department Nguyễn Mạnh Khởi said the legal system is incomplete.

Khởi said at present, many investors do not understand clearly about the different kinds of resort property.

Investors will study carefully those property products, and resort real estate projects entering the market will be located in many places with diversification in kinds, said Khởi.

Bình Định and Phú Yên want investment to their resort market because they have land for the development of this market and airports, according to him.

In the first quarter of this year, Việt Nam attracted about US$1.7 billion of FDI, an increase of 36 per cent year on year. Of which, the real estate sector in the last three years has always ranked second in attracting investment, especially resort property segment.

During this quarter, the number of condotels offered on the southern markets was higher than in northern and southern provinces, especially from Đà Nẵng to southern provinces.

According to incomplete statistics, in 2018 there were more than 8,000 condotels opened for sale in about 12 localities, mainly in localities having many tourism investment opportunities such as Đà Nẵng, Khánh Hoà, Bà Rịa Vũng Tàu, Kiên Giang, Phan Thiết and Quảng Ninh, especially Quảng Ninh accounting for 19 per cent, Đà Nẵng – 14 per cent and Khánh Hòa – more than 26 per cent.

Of which, more than 7,800 units were traded. - VNS