Legal bottlenecks will be removed this year, the real estate industry believes. — VNA/VNS Photo

Surging demand, the resolution of legal hurdles and the gradual containment of the Covid-19 pandemic make the real estate industry sanguine about 2021.

The Viet Nam Real Estate Brokerage Association assured that legal bottlenecks faced by property projects would continue to be resolved, and apartment supply would increase sharply from 2020.

Su Ngoc Khuong, a senior executive at Savills Viet Nam, said the pandemic had weakened demand and frozen the market in early 2020.

The Government had since taken a number of measures to address the difficulties, including promulgation of legal regulations for condotels, he said.

In 2021 it would be set to remove difficulties faced by the market by amending the Land Law, Construction Law and Investment Law.

It planned to carry out further administrative reforms and issue policies to select potential investors in accordance with the Investment Law and regulations for bidding procedures with priority given to large urban projects that use smart technology.

It would make public land-use plans along with a price framework that is close to market prices, and put in place regulations for electronic land buying and selling transactions.

Stronger FDI inflows would provide an impetus to the market this year, Khuong said.

The association said projects that had problems relating to laws would continue to solve the issues, and so apartment supply would increase sharply this year.

In HCM City alone some 20 projects in all segments were expected to be launched in the first half of 2021 with 30,000 units.

The association said since the economy would grow this year, demand for housing would recover.

The apartment segment was expected to account for a large proportion of the Ha Noi and HCM City housing markets, with 90,000-100,000 two-bedroom apartments expected to be traded in those markets.

Real estate prices were expected to increase by 10 per cent this year, Nguyen Van Dinh, deputy general secretary of the Viet Nam Real Estate Association, said. — VNS