Property experts participate at the Dien Dan Doanh Nghiep's online dialogue on April 23

HA NOI (Biz Hub)— Local real estate industry experts have forecast positive development in the domestic property market this year, including lower inventory and reasonable prices of property products.

At an online dialogue on Real estate market 2014: Opportunities from policies held by www.dddn.com.vn, on Wednesday, in Ha Noi, Nguyen Manh Ha, the director of the House Management Department under the Ministry of Construction, stated that since the beginning of this year, the local property market has shown positive development with an increase in transactions against the same period last year, the prices of houses and apartments stopped declining and even slightly surged in some projects located in Ha Noi and HCM City.

So far, this year, there were 2,300 successful transactions in Ha Noi's property market, including many transactions of projects at inventory. The inventory of Ha Noi property market had reduced, thereby resolving the difficulties of enterprises, while property prices had become stable, creating customer confidence in the market, Ha reported.

Meanwhile, the supply of property products in HCM City stood at a high level, including many finished products and products of projects that had been re-offered to the market after a period of no trading, he added.

However, the recovery of the local property market would focus on the popular property segment with small and medium areas and with a price not crossing VND20 million per square metre, he stated.

Medium- and high-class apartment projects at prominent locations and nearing completion would have an increase in transactions, he pointed out.

Nguyen Huu Cuong, the chairman of the Ha Noi Real Estate Club, remarked that 2014 was a potential year for the domestic property market because the state policies on regulating the local property market had made a positive impact on the market.

The State Bank of Viet Nam had committed to offer total loans worth VND3.29 trillion (US$156 millon) to 3,990 customers and also signed contracts for disbursing VND1.89 trillion ($90 million) to 3,983 customers, an increase of 135 per cent in value against December 31, 2013, Cuong noted.

The local property market had started recovering after going through a three-year turbulent period, he emphasised.

According to Matthew Powell, the director of Savills Viet Nam, 2014 would still present many challenges to the local property market as recovery had only occurred in segments of popular and medium-class houses for sale and lease, but not in the entire market.

However, the demand for property products recently increased as his company received many orders on providing consulting services on evaluation and lease, he affirmed.

Regarding the prices of property products, Pham Thanh Hung, the deputy chairman of CEN Group, claimed that currently, the property prices in Viet Nam were considered steep as compared to the prices in other regional countries.

According to Hung, the local prices are not higher than those in other regional countries, but are high in comparison with the average income of the people.

The prices of property products located in central areas of the city have increased 5-7 per cent due to immediate use and limited supply, while the prices of products in projects having limited infrastructure and located far from the centre will continue to drop.

Nguyen Thuy Nhan, the general director of the Binh Chanh Investment and Construction Joint Stock Company, pointed out that the comparison between the local prices and foreign ones is not justified because of different situations at home and abroad. — VNS