Overlaps and holes in laws related to the real estate market are continuing to prevent foreigners from buying houses in Vietnam, legislators have been warned.

Nguyen Hoang, a private broker who sells apartments to non-nationals, told VIR that the complex issuance of certificates of housing ownership to foreigners still impacts their rights and interests.

“I have helped some friends from abroad buy homes in big cities in Vietnam. Even though they met all the conditions set by the government, they waited a whole year in order to receive ownership. The reason is that many local governments are still confused about the procedures and so delay the process,” Hoang said.

In addition, foreigners are concerned about ownership terms. According to regulations, home ownership certificates for non-nationals will be valid for 50-70 years depending on each project, and can be renewed.

However, Hoang said, there are no instructions on the renewal procedure or how many times it can be renewed. This also leads to concerns among foreigners when deciding to buy a house in Vietnam.

Hoang also added that the government needs to consider allowing foreigners to buy homes from Vietnamese individuals, and allow them to buy tourist property. “These are high-end products, difficult to liquidate, and suitable for foreigners’ affordability. They meet the desire to buy real estate as a second home, especially tourism and resort products with many amenities,” he said.

Statistics from the Ministry of Construction earlier this year show that since the 2014 Housing Law took effect, more than 3,000 foreigners and organisations have bought houses in Vietnam, mainly apartments in commercial housing projects.

Foreign organisations and individuals buy and own Vietnamese houses, concentrated mainly in large provinces and cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and industrial hubs such as Bac Ninh, Binh Duong, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau. Most of them come from South Korea, China, Singapore, North America, Australia, or Japan.

However, the Vietnam Association of Realtors estimates that the number of foreigners who have bought houses in Vietnam is still modest. It says the amount of housing that non-nationals have bought since the 2014 Housing Law took effect only accounts for 0.53 per cent of the total housing stock in the country in 2018-2022.

Another problem is that there is no legal framework to address the needs of foreign homeowners when reselling houses and in cases where commercial housing projects have been completed and turned into normal residential areas. The reason is that the Housing Law stipulates that non-Vietnamese can only buy homes in commercial housing projects - which can be understood as not being able to buy houses in regular residential areas.

In addition, there are currently no instructions for foreigners wishing to resell their homes to other non-nationals.

Yoshi Nori Takita, ambassador of the president of the American Real Estate Association for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, said that to attract more foreign investors, the Vietnamese real estate market needs more transparency. “These investors do not have enough information to compare prices and choose products with good prices,” said Takita.

For example, he said, Filipinos promote their real estate products abroad, targeting Filipinos living abroad and other international investors. Everything is carried out in English and administrative procedures are simple, with payment steps similar to those in the US.

“I have not seen these things in Vietnam. I want to emphasise that the country does not have a big enough database for individual investors to find information about the Vietnamese real estate market. We want to see market trends, average prices, appreciation rates, and economic indexes. I believe this information is available, but it is difficult for foreigners to access,” Takita explained.

To help them more easily access Vietnamese real estate, Bui Trang from Cushman & Wakefield said the government should focus on reviewing, completing, and removing obstacles in legal regulations in accordance with the market and international practices.

“This would help to create an attractive, competitive, and open business investment environment, along with promptly removing policy complexities to create stronger conditions for investors,” Trang said.

Together with those suggestions are flexibly managing monetary policy, meeting the needs of credit capital flows for market development, and improving transportation infrastructure, she added.

According to a survey by the Vietnam Institute of Real Estate Research in September with 500 large-scale foreign investors, 10.5 per cent of them evaluated that real estate prices in Vietnam were at very attractive levels, while 47.4 per cent rated them as very attractive but would be even better with legal advances.

The survey also presented that mid-range and high-end apartments and tourism and resort real estate are the most interested area for foreign buyers.

Vietnam Investment Review