VietNamNet Bridge – The real estate, automobile and motorbike markets, which have been gloomy for the last many months with the weak demand, is now freezing in the “forsaken spirits” month.

Car, motorbike sellers sit idle

A salesman of a motorbike shop in Thanh Xuan district in Hanoi complained that the sales dropped dramatically in the last two weeks of August. He said some people come to ask about the prices and sales promotion programs, while there have been very few buyers.

The last two weeks of August in solar calendar coincided with the first days of the seventh month in lunar calendar, which Vietnamese businessmen call the “forsaken spirits” month.

The month is always the lowest sales season, when the demand decreases to the deepest low. Vietnamese people are superstitious, believing that the owners would meet troubles or accidents, if they buy motorbikes or cars in this month. Therefore, they would rather delay the purchase plan until the next month, unless they need to buy things urgently.

A salesman of Hong Hanh shop, a sales agent of Yamaha, on Ba Trieu Street, said the sales dropped sharply by 40 percent in the first months of the year in comparison with the previous year, and then plummeted dramatically by another 30 percent in the forsaken spirits’ month.

Hoang Manh Khanh, Director of Vuong Phat Company Ltd in Hanoi, specializing in distributing import Sachs motorbikes, said he does not think he can sell 100 products this month.

However, Khanh said he is not too worried about the sales falls. A lot of people bought motorbikes in the first two weeks of August already, before the forsaken month. Meanwhile, he expects the demand to increase in the last days of September, when the forsaken month ends and students officially start a new academic year, which means that the demand would be higher.

Providing maintenance services and replacing motorbike parts prove to be the main works of sales agents at this moment. Therefore, only technicians still keep working, while business development officers have been sitting idle.

The sales agents have been put on tenterhooks, because motorbikes have been unsold and heaped up in their storehouses. Meanwhile, they have anticipated that the sales would be very gloomy for four weeks, despite the sharp price discounts.

An officer of Kuong Ngan Company, the official distributor of many motorbike manufacturers, said sales agents have been put into dilemma, since they have to continue receiving products from the manufacturers for sales, while the sales have become stagnant. The sales agents have to stably take more products for sale, or they would not be provided products.

Car dealers seem to be in a bigger distress than motorbike sellers. Ford’s, Toyota’s, Honda’s GM’s sales agents in Hanoi said they sold only some products in the last two weeks

August witnessed the car prices fall most dramatically. Renault Vietnam offered the price reductions of up to 200 million dong for some of its models, while Truong Hai Auto has offered the price discount of 100 million dong.

Property market remains immovable

The seventh month of the lunar year is also the taboo month for real estate traders. The owners of many real estate trading floors complained that they have never seen such a gloomy situation before.

Though commercial banks have eased lending interest rates and loosened the requirements on borrowers, the property market still has not warmed up yet.

Huynh Minh Thanh, Deputy General Director of Hanco 9, said people would not make hasty decisions when seeking to buy land and houses, the valuable assets. Therefore, they would rather wait some more time and would only make decisions in the eighth month of the year.

Tran Thuy