According to the real estate market report recently published by the Department of Construction, in August 2023, there was 1 high-end project confirmed to be eligible to mobilize capital for future housing with a scale of 220 low-rise houses, the total capital mobilization value is 1,264.2 billion VND.

Accumulated from the beginning of 2023 to now, in Ho Chi Minh City, there are 14 projects with 14,286 houses eligible to mobilize capital for future housing. Of which, there are 13,033 apartments and 1,253 low-rise houses. The total value of capital mobilization is more than 146,000 billion VND.

However, looking at the number of apartments that have just been opened for sale, it shows that the real estate market in Ho Chi Minh City still has a gap between supply and demand. For example, the high-end segment is still in excess supply, with more than 60% of the apartments priced above 40 million VND/m2. The rest are in the price segment from 20-40 million VND/m2.

Meanwhile, apartments priced under VND20 million/m2 are the segment that many people are interested in, especially those who have real housing needs, but no products have been added to the new supply.

According to statistics, since 2021, Ho Chi Minh City has not had any affordable apartments offered for sale on the market. Investors are still focusing on mid-range and high-end projects, while the number of customers in these segments is still quite limited. This has created a situation where market liquidity has not improved significantly, bringing cash flow back to real estate.

This problem has also been warned by the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association. That is the situation of excess high-end, luxury houses, while the shortage of affordable houses has reached its peak. It is worth mentioning that instead of focusing on meeting the market demand, many investors still cling to the "presence" of high-end products to raise product prices before the project is even completed.

In addition, although the locality is assigned the 5th highest social housing development target in the country with the requirement of meeting 70,000 apartments by 2030, up to now, Ho Chi Minh City still faces many difficulties in developing social housing.

It is known that there are currently 9 social housing projects being implemented in Ho Chi Minh City with a scale of 6,383 apartments. Of which, 4 projects have broken ground and started construction in 2022, including: Social housing project - block C, in Nguyen Son residential area (Binh Chanh district) invested by Nguyen Son Real Estate Joint Stock Company; Social housing in Tan Thuan Tay residential area (MR1 - District 7) invested by Xuan Mai Saigon Construction Investment Joint Stock Company; Social housing in the residential area in Phu Huu ward (Thu Duc city) invested by Dragon Village Real Estate Joint Stock Company; Social housing in the Long Truong ward residential area project (Thu Duc city) invested by Dien Phuc Thanh Construction and Housing Trading Company Limited.

However, in reality, most social housing projects are still "shelved" due to various obstacles. To promote the progress of social housing projects, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has also held many meetings to remove obstacles and direct departments and branches to take action.

For example, at the end of July, Ho Chi Minh City had to issue an urgent document, including a request to review and issue specific solutions, shorten administrative procedures in investment procedures, and approve investment policies for housing projects and social housing construction projects. However, up to now, the results have not been as expected.

On August 28, the Office of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee also announced the conclusion of Vice Chairman of the City People's Committee Bui Xuan Cuong at the meeting to listen to the Department of Construction report on contents related to investment in social housing construction in the area.

Accordingly, the city leaders assigned the Department of Construction to preside over the research and handling of social housing projects with clear and complete legal documents so that investors can soon implement them. For projects with complicated and complicated legal documents, it is necessary to carefully study and propose solutions to ensure strict procedures and compliance with legal regulations.

According to the monitoring report "Implementation of policies and laws on management, operation, renovation and reconstruction of apartment buildings" recently published by the Law Committee, no apartment buildings in the localities under monitoring have been classified and recognized for their grades.

According to Circular 31/2016 of the Ministry of Construction, apartment buildings are divided into different classes to determine their value when managing or trading on the market. The Department of Construction of provinces and cities is assigned to recognize apartment building classes in the area upon request of organizations and individuals.

The classification order is based on four groups of criteria: A (highest), B and C (lowest) based on four groups of criteria including planning - architecture; technical systems and equipment; services, social infrastructure and quality, management and operation. In particular, class A apartments must meet at least 18 out of 20 specific criteria according to the guiding circular.

However, many investors do not classify according to regulations but self-classify their projects with names that confuse customers such as high-end apartments, luxury apartments, apartments with foreign names.