Feb 2, 2012

Vietnam - Hard to predict recovery time of HCM City property market: Knight Frank



2012 may witness an expected increase in real estate investment operations generally but it will be also the decisive time for some investors, the realty consulting firm Knight Frank Vietnam predicts.

Accordingly, in HCM City, prices of some market segments will go down, which will show the real demand and create stimulation for the property market.

Continuous increase in condominium supply

Annually, Q4 was the busiest time of the property market but from September to December in 2011, the condominium market in HCM City kept seeing low transaction ratio. Around 2,200 apartments were launched in the market, including common condos accounted for 66%. Majority of the new supply was in outskirt districts such as Binh Tan, Nha Be, Tan Phu, Binh Chanh and Thu Duc.

Several primary projects, which had been announced, reduced selling price by 20-30%. Although the condo price continued falling, volume of transactions remained modest because of the buyers’ wait-and-see attitude.

Also some investors kept offering support programs for buyers like extending payment and funding of banks, lucky pickup and discount wholesale prices.

In the last quarter of 2011, selling prices on the secondary market decreased by 10% quarter-on-quarter in districts due to the low liquidity of the market and the offloading race of investors to repay bank debts. This may pressure the unsold inventory volume on the secondary market.

Yet, overall, the common condominium market segment is priced in the range of 11 million to 17.2 million dong per square meter. After defining real demand in the market, famous investors namely Phat Dat Co, Novaland as well as CapitaLand, Indochina Land were planning to change business strategy aiming at medium and common segments.

In next 3 years, HCM City will have total 55 projects with 24,000 apartments expected to be launched in the market. HCM City’s condo market will have to cope with difficulties because of low purchasing power.

Less attractive villas and street houses

Similar to the condo segment, the villa and street house market in Q4 of 2011 remained gloomy.

In the reporting period, few new projects of villas and street houses were offered in the districts of 7, 9 and Binh Tan. Phu My Hung venture has started to offer phase 1 of Chateau luxury villa project in District 7. Meanwhile, Khang Dien Co and Vinh Tien Company also contributed extra 50 villas to the supply source with the Hoja Villa project in District 9 and Saigon West Villa in Binh Tan Dist. The city’s supply rose by 20% against Q3 with additional 360 villas and street houses.

Although the new supply is attracting the customers’ attention, current market conditions are impacting negatively to the buyer’s faith. The lowest selling price of new projects was 4.3 billion dong per villa, and the price was higher in good locations typically Phu My Hung.

But, the lower expected profitability made value of villas and street houses less attractive compared with gold investment.

Only few transactions were successful in well-located projects along with big roads namely Nguyen Huu Tho (Nha Be Dist), Nguyen Van Linh (Binh Chanh Dist).

Neighbouring provinces like Long An, Dong Nai, Binh Duong continued witnessing high transaction rate in the last 3 months of 2011. The projects priced at less than 5 million dong per sqm accounted for the major proportion in number of transactions. The expectation to improve infrastructure in these provinces became the key motivation of buyers.

Mr Colin Luff, Head of Valuation & Advisory Services at Knight Frank Vietnam shared, “We do not see any factor to support faith that is able to stimulate the market demand for the first half of 2012.”

In his opinion, the banking system is expected to be restructured with a view to enhance the system’s capacity while inflation is in the big gap with controllable level in Vietnam.

Knight Frank Vietnam forecasted that the real estate market would remain gloomy in 2012.

“District 2 and District 9 will be the most attractive areas for the villa and street house market thanks to the developed infrastructure. The provinces bordering HCM City will continue to reach good transaction volume”, Mr Colin Luff said.

VietBiz24



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