Minister of Construction Nguyen Thanh Nghi held talks with Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Park Sanwoo in Hanoi on July 16.

Many resettlement apartments have been left idle at a time when many low-income earners don’t have accommodations. HCM City authorities have proposed turning these abandoned apartments into social housing.

The two largest resettlement quarters in HCM City remain deserted. People who had to give back land to the state to make room for public projects do not want to resettle there as planned.

A credit package of VND120 trillion was launched a year ago to provide preferential credit to develop social housing and improve old apartment buildings. However, no project has received disbursement from the package.

The Hanoi Department of Planning and Architecture has proposed the development of nine more social housing projects with a total area of 669 hectares in several suburban districts.

There are about 13,000 abandoned apartments in Hanoi and HCM City

Among the 36 unfinished social housing projects, six are under construction, and the rest have their legal procedures finished.

The ratification of the 2023 Housing Law with new regulations on social housing is expected to have a positive impact on businesses’ investments and home buyers.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on March 16 urged the plan on building at least 1 million social housing units for low-income earners and industrial workers in the 2021 - 2030 period to be implemented quickly and effectively.

The real estate market showed signs of warming up with social housing projects on sale last week.

Cities and provinces across the country are focusing on social housing development as part of a national strategy to meet the growing needs of their residents.

Disbursement of VND120,000 billion (US$ 4,877,708,416) preferential credit package for social housing development is still slow.

Vietnam is striving to build 130,000 apartments for low-income earners and workers in industrial parks this year in line with a Government Resolution issued in January 2024, said the Ministry of Construction.

Vietnam expects to have 108 social housing projects with over 47,500 apartments completed in 2024, according to the Ministry of Construction.

HCMC finds it extremely challenging to achieve its social housing target for the 2021-2025 period, with only 3.3% of the projects completed to date, well below the goal set by the Prime Minister.

Limited social housing supply, inappropriate loan terms and stringent requirements for borrowers are making disbursement of the VNĐ120 trillion (US$4.9 billion) credit package for social housing slow, according to insiders.

Many workers have been working here for more than 10 years, but owning an apartment in the social housing project remains a difficult and distant thing for the majority of labourers.

Many offers to sell property with attractive discounts of up to hundreds of millions of dong still exist, but houses remain very expensive.

Many experts on the property market proposed cutting interest rates of loans for investing or buying social housing products to 4.5-6% per year from 8.2-8.7% at present.

The Ministry of Construction will have loose regulations so that more low-income earners are eligible for buying social housing.