Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The domestic real estate market in the first quarter had the lowesttransaction volume in the past four years due to the impact of the COVID-19pandemic, the Vietnam Association of Real Estate Brokers (VARS) said.

Nguyen Van Dinh, VARS Vice President, told Vietnamplus that the reasons forthat situation included strong reduction in new supply last year, a long Tet holidayand the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“The number of transactions only accounted for about 10 percent of totaloffered property products in the first quarter, too low compared to the sameperiod of last year,” Dinh said.

However, the price of apartments and low-rise houses in the quarter did notdecrease against the fourth quarter of 2019. Now, there are no businessesannouncing discounts for those products, he said.

According to the quarterly real estate market report released by VARS earlythis week, in the first quarter, property enterprises nationwide offered atotal of 53,200 units in housing projects, while the successful housingtransactions reached more than 7,600 units. The absorption rate of this housingsegment was 14.3 percent.

Of which, the total new supply was nearly 18,700 housing units, including morethan 8,350 apartments and more than 10,300 low-rise houses. The successfultransactions for the new supply reached more than 2,750 housing units.

Meanwhile, the inventory was more than 34,550 products, including 4,872products traded successfully.

The luxury apartment segment had the largest inventory, the association said.

According to the Hanoi Department of Construction, about 8,900 apartments wereoffered in the Hanoi market in the first quarter, including 1,167newly-launched products. The market had only 1,300 successful apartmenttransactions.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction said more than 8,400 apartmentswere offered on the city market in the first quarter, including 4,664newly-launched products. The market had 1,400 successful apartmenttransactions.

VARS reported that in the property market in other localities, transactionswere mainly landed property. Before the Lunar New Year festival, these productsstill attracted many customers and small investors but now, due to thepandemic, the transactions of those products was very quiet.

Besides that, the pandemic made large investors and trading floors suspendtrading activities of their products because customers do not want to come tocrowded places. About 50 percent of total real estate trading floors must closeand many property brokers are unemployed.

For the resort segment, the market had few newly-launched products while someproducts of the inventory were traded successfully in the first quarter.

The association also reported in this quarter, there was a virtual land feverin Thach That district, Hanoi, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.

Dinh said in the second quarter this year, the domestic property market wouldremain stagnant like in the first quarter, especially the resort segment.

The Hanoi and HCM City markets are expected to have traded apartments in thesecond quarter but the volume would be low and mainly in the affordable andmid-grade segments due to high demand, he said.

Those two large markets are predicted to have not many newly-launchedapartments so property products that are traded on the markets would mainly beinventory goods.

VARS also forecasts that the land and landed property will remain the dominantproduct in many provinces and cities, excluding Hanoi and HCM City. However,transactions are likely to decline sharply over the same period of last year.

Prices of affordable and mid-end apartments in urban areas are expected to notincrease because of low demand during the pandemic and high inventory,according to the association.

Meanwhile, price of high-end apartments may fall because capital pressure wouldforce investors to reduce the price./.