My friend, a salaried employee at a private company in Ho Chi Minh City, talked about his and his wife's dream of a house since they had their first child nearly ten years ago.

Until now, the second child is preparing to enter first grade but the house is still just a dream.

10 years, the dream house is getting further away

Every day, he wakes up early, squeezes on buses from Hoc Mon district to work in District 3, working tirelessly for 8 hours. Every afternoon, he watches life through the bus window on his way back to his residence.

That house has up to 15 people, including the wife's parents, 2 families of the wife's younger siblings, his family, children and grandchildren.

Before deciding to have a baby, my friend rented a room and gave his wife his motorbike to go to work. Then the children needed someone to look after and take them to and from school, so the couple had to move back to their grandparents' house for both parties' convenience and to save some money.

After 10 years, his wife still rides a motorbike to work, and her husband still takes the bus to work. Life is a regular going back and forth to their shared home.

Although parents and siblings are very close, the desire for a home of their own is always in the couple's mind.

"For a long time, the dream of having a small house of our own has always urged us.

A place for couples to live in peace, to have some privacy, and for children to have a comfortable space for their studies and activities is gradually becoming necessary as they grow older.

But that dream seems too far away for those of us whose salary next month is the same as last month's," he confided.

My friend and his wife's monthly salary is nearly 20 million VND, which is very economical but just enough to cover their living expenses and take care of their two children's education, without having to spend money on rent like many other families.

Thinking about saving enough money to buy a house, or taking out a bank loan for a low-income apartment, is too far away for them.

Over the past ten years, I don't remember how many times the basic salary has been adjusted to increase, but it is certain that real estate prices have jumped far beyond the affordability of the majority of people.

"I remember once accidentally reading an article saying that, to buy a normal apartment in the city, a worker has to spend his whole life working. That sentence haunted my wife and I forever," my friend sighed.

Sad to see empty apartment buildings and abandoned projects

A report at the National Assembly's discussion session on October 28 on the results of monitoring the implementation of policies and laws on real estate market management and social housing development in the 2015-2023 period showed that many urban areas were abandoned while real estate prices skyrocketed compared to the income growth of the majority of people.

In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, there is no longer a segment of affordable apartments. According to the Hanoi People's Committee, the mid-range and high-end apartment segment accounts for the majority. In 2022, apartment prices increased very high, with low transaction volume.

In Ho Chi Minh City, real estate transactions have decreased sharply, real estate prices have increased uncontrollably, and there is an imbalance between price and value.

The Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association provided the National Assembly's monitoring delegation with statistics showing that from 2021, there will no longer be a segment of affordable apartments priced under VND25 million/ ^m2 in the city.

Many housing projects face legal problems, site clearance, investment procedures, land, and planning, causing delays in implementation and progress.

While business resources have been invested in very large projects, causing waste of land and capital, increasing difficulties and costs for investors, thereby increasing product prices.

Not to mention the speculation that caused real estate prices to be inflated into a real estate bubble.

The monitoring team determined that these shortcomings and limitations led to an unreasonable structure of real estate products, an imbalance in supply and demand, mainly targeting the high-end segment, and a lack of products suitable for the affordability of the majority of people.

No better than my friend, I myself tried to save every penny, minimize unnecessary expenses, and had to turn down many gatherings with friends and trips to save up... for my dream of having my own place to return to.

But all my efforts so far, like many others, seem to have become hopeless in the face of the rising housing prices. I still live in a room in a rented house of a relative who has settled abroad, working day and night but still cannot make ends meet.

Every time I pass by luxury real estate projects that have been completed but still have many vacant spaces, or abandoned projects… I can’t help but wonder: when will there be a cheap apartment in the suburbs to settle down?

Rising housing prices have become a burden on the shoulders of many families. It makes the dream of owning a home more distant, making many people like me feel "helpless".

These past few days, reading the newspaper, I saw that many people in the provinces are tending to leave the city to return to the countryside. I sympathize with them, even though I am a city person.

Hopefully one day this situation will improve. Hopefully there will be appropriate policies to support low-income people to have the opportunity to own a house.

And above all, hopefully wages, incomes and prices, especially housing prices, will no longer be as far apart as they are now.