VietNamNet Bridge – By ratifying the revised Housing Law, allowing foreigners to buy houses in Vietnam, the National Assembly has helped the rich in Vietnam, which will in turn receive big benefits.

Having been in Vietnam for the last eight years, Peter Luu, a Vietnamese American, director of a Los Angeles-based company, is still living in a rented house.

However, Luu said he would buy a house in Vietnam soon now that the National Assembly has allowed foreigners to purchase houses in the country.

Luu, like the other 80,000 expats in Vietnam, who want to live in houses of their own rather than rent, feel happy about the new law.

However, it is the Vietnamese real estate developers who are most excited about the news.

Peter Ryder, the director of an investment fund, commented that with the new law, the gap between Vietnam and the world will be narrowed within 10 or 20 years.

If Vietnam can create a market for the rich, it will find the market has a lot of potential and that it would bring many benefits.

Tran Nhu Trung, a senior executive of the Tan Hoang Minh Group, a big real estate developer, told VietNamNet that the National Assembly’s decision will have a positive impact on the market, because the market will become busier thanks to higher demand.

Trung noted that this will also help attract more foreign investors to Vietnam, because the investors understand their clients will also be foreigners, not just Vietnamese buyers.

However, more importantly, Trung said, “we will have clients who are more demanding, willing to pay money for high-quality products and have better knowledge about the real estate sector”.

Richard Leech, a senior executive at CBRE Vietnam, a real estate service provider, also commented that the newly ratified Housing Law will stimulate market demand.

When asked how Vietnamese real estate developers need to prepare for a busier property market in the near future with demand on the rise, Trung said foreigners are choosier than most Vietnamese customers, so real estate developers need to be professional and provide products that meet international standards.

“What Vietnamese like may not be what foreigners like,” he said. “They (foreigners) buy houses for accommodation.”

Nguyen Vu Cao, chair and CEO of Hoang Gia Invest Group, also commented that real estate developers need to understand foreigners’ taste to be able to provide “products that clients want, not the products real estate developers have”.

Duy Linh