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Real Estate in Vietnam Articles

Vietnam’s beleaguered property market is bottoming out just as macroeconomic indicators stabilize and the ruling Communist Party makes new pledges to reform a struggling and corruption-riddled banking sector, say developers and businessmen here, the country’s commercial capital. And if Vietnam signs onto the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement that involves a dozen countries, including the United States, it may bolster the Vietnamese economy and speed a real estate recovery nha ban

Yet although lending rates have fallen to 12.8 percent, from 20.3 percent in 2011, no one in Vietnam knows whether the market can rebound to the peaks it hit before 2008, much less whether the government’s statistics or commitments to banking reform are reliable. For the moment, the mid- to high-end apartment markets remain oversupplied in this city and in the capital, Hanoi.

“It’s going to be another year before things get more clear — it’s rather opaque at this point,” said Trinh Bao Quoc, chief executive at Son Kim Land Corporation, a local developer. “But if you talk to foreign investors, a lot of them who are here in Vietnam know that this is a good time to buy.”

In this city, asking rates for office rentals, now at about $20 to $30 per square meter, or about 10 square feet, began to rise in late 2012 for the first time since 2007, according to the Los Angeles-based real estate company CBRE. And in recent months, average selling prices for low-end residential properties in Hanoi have held steady around $800 per square meter after falling precipitously for two years.

Some foreign investors have bought real estate here this year, in what brokers suggest is a sign of rising liquidity and investor confidence. And a few major construction projects are in the pipeline, including a tower that will include Vietnam’s first Ritz-Carlton.