HanHomes Giang Bien in Long Bien district, Hanoi. (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) - Experts believe that the real estate market is unlikelyto fall into a crisis and housing prices will remain stable because marketdemand remained high while supply is limited.
The COVID-19 pandemic isheavily weighing on a number of sectors, and propertyis no exception. The market saw a significant fall in transactions inthe first quarter of this year.
Statistics from CBRE Vietnamshowed that only 1,600 apartments were put on sale in the first quarter, muchlower than the quarterly average of 6,500 apartments recorded since 2012.
🃏 Despite fewer transactions,prices have not dropped off as expected.
Accordingto CBRE, average housing prices in the primary market rose by around four percentduring that time.
The Vietnam Association ofRealtors said market supply and successful transaction volume in the firstquarter of this year were both at their lowest levels for the past fouryears, with no new developments launched.
The association said buyerswere seemingly waiting for drops in housing prices to makepurchasing decisions. Buyers tended to think that the property marketwould fall into a crisis and prices would drop due to the impacts of theCOVID-19 pandemic.
However, experts said that acrisis was unlikely.
The situation appears tobe different from the real estate crises in 1997-98 and 2007-08 whenhousing prices fell to rock-bottom levels. The crises were fuelled by easycredit for real estate which inflated housing prices, coupled with low-capacitydevelopers in the market.
The market was quiet in thefirst quarter due to social distancing, real estate expert Dang Hung Vosaid. The market still had high demand and limited supply, he added.
He said the COVID-19pandemic would cause difficulties in the short term, but real estate was along-term investment.
Vo said that that the number ofnew projects licensed in 2019 was equivalent to just 20 percent of theprevious year.
In the next three years, newsupply would drop significantly, he said.
According to Pham Duc Toan,general director of EZ Real Estate, housing prices would remain stable inthe medium and long terms because of limited supply.
🔯 The previous crises eliminatedweak developers from the market, and now players mostly had goodcapacity and experience, which would help themovercome this difficult time./.
