HCMC – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, head of the Central Steering Committee for Housing and Real Estate Market Policies, chaired a meeting on September 22 to announce the committee’s consolidation and hold its first session.
Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Van Sinh reported that 1,816 housing and new urban area projects had been launched over the past nine months. Of these, 1,071 were commercial housing projects with 398,000 units, adding to market supply. More than 430,000 real estate transactions were recorded, with apartments seeing the strongest demand, particularly in major cities.
Despite this supply growth, property prices remain high. Apartment prices in Hanoi and HCMC are averaging VND70-80 million per square meter, up 5.6% against early this year. In Hanoi, adjacent houses and villas typically cost VND100-200 million per square meter, while in HCMC they range from VND230-300 million. Land plots in Hanoi are commonly priced at VND60-100 million per square meter, while social housing is sold at VND15-25 million per square meter.
Concluding the meeting, PM Chinh stressed that developing the real estate market and social housing is a national priority requiring comprehensive, transparent, and effective measures. He called for closer coordination between central and local governments, businesses, citizens, and alignment of fiscal, monetary, and other policies.
Chinh placed special emphasis on social housing, calling for sufficient supply at affordable prices so that people can buy or rent-to-own homes. He demanded clarification on possible market manipulation, such as hoarding, price gouging, and speculation, which distort the market. He specifically questioned why apartment prices remain persistently high, leaving many people unable to buy homes.
“Houses priced at VND100 million per square meter—how can people afford that, when so many are in need of housing? Banks must also help regulate this,” Chinh said. He urged increasing supply to ease market prices and balance supply and demand under market mechanisms.
The PM also requested continued removal of regulatory and policy bottlenecks to make conditions more transparent and convenient. He proposed that while commercial housing projects must allocate at least 20% of their land to social housing, authorities should also consider allowing 20% of social housing project land to be used for commercial housing.
On land prices, he called for stronger state management and regulation, more efficient land use, simplified procedures, and a shift from pre-checks to stronger post-checks.
He also asked for new regulations on income thresholds for social housing buyers, with local governments given flexibility to adjust them. The State Bank of Vietnam was assigned to review lending policies, including interest rates, loan tenures, and procedures, to make them more suitable and accessible.
