HCM City (VNS/VNA) - The Ho Chi Minh City's housing market is expected torecover again after being flat for over one year with support from the localgovernment.

Developers said authorities remove hindrances that had been faced by 124 realestate projects, and this would help significantly increase the supply ofapartments.

In the first five months of the year, the market did not see the samefeverishness that was evident in the last three years.

According to DKRA Vietnam, only around 500 plots of land were sold in the periodcompared to over 4,000 in the same period in 2017.

No land project was launched in the eastern area, a real estate hot spot inrecent years.

As a result, frauds have begun to put up plots in non-existent projects forsale. Authorities in districts 7, 9 and 12 have warned about these projects.

According to the District 12 authorities, illegal levelling of and constructionof infrastructure on agricultural land have been reported in Thanh Xuan ward.

It was difficult for them to stop and punish the culprits because the work wasdone at night and on holidays, they said.

The ward People’s Committee has also found people offering these lands forsale.

It has warned the public not to buy these unauthorised lands.

In the apartment segment, only 15 projects were launched in the first fivemonths with 3,000 apartments compared to over 10,000 in the same period lastyear.

The chairman of the HCM City Real Estate Association, Le Hoang Chau, said thereis insufficient supply of apartments because the city has curtailed licensingof new projects pending an inspection of lands and the legal status of manyexisting projects.

A spokesperson for the city People’s Committee said the population hasincreased rapidly since 2009, forcing the demand for housing up year afteryear.

This has caused land and house prices to increase sharply, especially indistricts near the city centre such as Phu Nhuan and Binh Thanh.

According to Dau Tu Bat Dong San (Real Estate Investment) magazine, houses nearthe city centre, which used to be priced at less than 10 billion VND now cost 1million USD (about 23 billion VND).

The average apartment price in District 9 increased from 24 million VND persquare metre last year to 29 million VND now, and in District 2 from 35 millionVND to 40 million VND.

Developers are expecting the market to look up after five months in the doldrums.

Le Tien Vu, deputy director of Cat Tuong Group, said authorities’ efforts toresolve the problems faced by the property market bring a “positive” sign.

Deputy Chief of the Department of Construction’s house development division TranQuoc Dai said the world has seen factories moved from China to Vietnam, withmany of them heading for HCM City.

To cope, the city has built another industrial park in the Sai Gon South Areaand hopes to expand existing industrial parks and complexes.

This is also a boost to the real estate market, with demand for newaccommodation set to surge, he added. — VNS/VNA