High-end apartments are changed to medium-ends apartments to allure more customers. – Photo www.batdongsan.vn

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — A number of high-end apartments here have been converted into medium-end apartments and offered at lower prices to attract more customers and reduce large inventories, experts said.

The price of high-end apartments was reduced from VND38 million to VND 45 million per square meter a few years ago to VND30 million per square metre today because these were priced beyond most peoples' incomes, reported Infonet online newspaper.

Investors took out high-end interiors and delivered nearly-completed instead of completed apartments to be able to bring down prices. The size of high-end apartments was likewise reduced to further bring down the price to VND22 million to VND30 million per square metre.

Affected projects include Ho Guom Plaza, Golden Palace, Golden Land and Spark Hoang Quoc Viet, as well as CT1 Trung Van and Green Star.

The market for high-end apartments has remained gloomy for several years while the market for medium- and small-end apartments has remained bright because the latter were priced within most peoples'incomes.

Nguyen Van Duc, the HCM City Real Estate Association deputy chairman, said investors were more concerned about increasing sales, reducing inventory and paying debts than they were about protecting their reputation.

The Thoi bao Ngan hang (Banking Times) newspaper quoted Nguyen Vinh Tran, Nam Long Investment Joint Stock Company general director, as saying the scaling down of high-end apartments to make them more affordable was a temporary trend and that the domestic property market was not recovering as quickly as expected.

The recovery of the domestic property market requires co-operation among investors, customers and State management offices, as well as general solutions on State and investors' financial and customer care policies, Tran added. — VNS