Ministry to adopt loose regulations to help more people buy social housing
Six social housing projects in HCMC get credit package of US$5.07 billion
HCMC to soon handle obstacles on social housing, open for sale some projects
The Government is proposed to remove difficulties for investment projects to build at least one million social housing apartments
While verifying the implementation of the National Assembly’s resolutions in the field of construction, the National Assembly's Economic Committee stated that prices of many real estate segments are unreasonable; however, this cannot be resolved in a short time because a number of difficulties and problems in the real estate market are still existing, so it may take many years to find out solutions for the problems.
According to the National Assembly's inspection agency, the operations of real estate businesses still face many difficulties, due to difficulties in accessing capital sources such as credit and bonds while interest rates, foreign exchange rates, and input material prices have increased but property businesses can't sell apartments.
This forced many businesses to narrow the scale of production and business investment, streamline their apparatus, and reduce their workforce as well as stop or postpone investment and construction activities of several projects and the implementation of new projects.
The difficulties of the real estate market also lead to difficulties for contractors, material suppliers and many other industries, the Economic Committee stated.
Notably, according to the National Assembly's agency, the real estate market's present problems will make businesses develop necessary projects to meet people's real needs.
Furthermore, it is expected that the supply of affordable housing segment will increase. This is a good opportunity for the real estate market to develop sustainably.
People's demand for home ownership is in fact still huge and will continue to increase in the future, but the supply has not yet met the market demand, according to the Economic Committee. The committee said that prices of many real estate segments are not suitable for people's income.
Moreover, by the end of June this year, the loan support package for buying, renting and purchasing social housing, worker accommodation, and household housing had disbursed over VND6,200 billion (US$255,001,933) to 15,000 customers, 24 eligible social housing projects, housing for workers, and old apartment renovations. Total investment was around VND19,014 billion and loan demand as proposed by localities approximated VND7,516 billion.
Additionally, the Standing Economic Committee proposed a more specific assessment of the effectiveness of support policies and clarification of policies achieved according to resolutions of the National Assembly.
The Standing Committee of the Economic Committee also pointed out that some difficulties and problems in the real estate market will hardly be resolved in a short time, but it will take many years to handle. Therefore, the Government needs to direct relevant agencies to continue reviewing problems in the legal framework, and soon complete the Law on Real Estate Business (amended), the Land Law (amended), and the Housing Law (amended).
In its report, the Economic Committee proposed the Government remove difficulties for investment projects to build at least one million social housing apartments as well as promote credit lending to real estate businesses, creating conditions for further reduction of lending interest rates.
Regarding policies to attract and create medium and long-term capital sources for the real estate market, in early March 2023, the Government issued the Decree No. 08 with many new points. This Decree opened up opportunities for businesses to have more options for handling bonds as well as remove difficulties for businesses that do not have money to repay their due bonds.
The State Bank also issued many circulars guiding the specific implementation of legal regulations to better manage capital sources for the real estate market and better control the issuance of real estate corporate bonds.
Appreciating this move, the Standing Economic Committee proposed additional policies on attracting and creating medium and long-term capital sources for the real estate market in addition to further reduction of lending interest rates; especially reviewing and reporting bond issuance data of real estate businesses recently.
This committee also requested the Government to carefully and specifically review and evaluate the solvency and payment capacity of corporate bond issuers, including real estate businesses, especially corporate bonds which are mature in 2023.
By Anh Phuong – Translated By Dan Thuy