The real estate market is hot

The latest report by CBRE Vietnam found that 31 percent of customers who bought houses in HCM City in the first nine months of 2018 were from China, while the number of Vietnamese buyers accounted for 24 percent.

The number of Chinese purchasing houses in HCM City has been soaring in the last three years. Only 2 percent of buyers in 2016 were Chinese, while the figure was double in 2017. 

By the end of September 2018, Chinese jumped from sixth to the first position in the list of biggest buyers, surpassing Vietnam, South Korea and Hong Kong.

South China Morning Post last year reported that investors from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China mainland were the leading property buyers in HCM City, where real estate price had increased by twofold within 10 years.

Tram Cao from Sunwah Group also said on Nha Dau Tu that 30 percent of buyers at Sunwah Pearl project were foreigners and most of them from China and Japan.

Local newspapers quoted experts as commenting that there is a ‘strong wave of Chinese flocking to HCM City to buy properties’, warning that this is an ‘abnormal phenomenon’. They said action needs to taken to prevent the excessive buying, or it will be too late.

Australia wants to impose additional taxes on foreigners who buy houses in the country, while New Zealand is considering prohibiting non-resident foreigners to buy houses there.

However, Can Van Luc, a respected economist, thinks there is no need to worry about the Chinese wave of purchasing Vietnam’s properties. He said Chinese are seeking to purchase houses all over the world, not only in Vietnam. Chinese have houses in the US, Canada and Japan.

Le Hoang Chau, chair of the HCM City Real Estate Association (HOREA), questioned the proportion of Chinese buyers reported by CBRE. 

He said only several thousand apartments are distributed via CBRE each year, a small figure compared with thousands of transactions in the entire market. He said the figures released by CBRE do not truly reflect the city’s real estate market.

However, he thinks there is no need for concern as the State sets limits on the number of foreigners in every project.

The HCMC Construction Department does not have exact figures about the number of foreign buyers, because real estate developers are not required to report the data.

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