Viet Nam's real estate market needs stricter regulations to standardise real estate brokers for the domestic property market to operate transparently.

Nguyen Huong, vice chairwoman of the Viet Nam Real Estate Brokers Association, said the number of real estate brokers in Viet Nam had increased rapidly in recent years, but the quality had not improved.

The problem is the quality. Although the Ministry of Construction has regulations relating to real estate brokerage practice certificates, it still has not paid attention, she said.

According to Huong, unprofessional real estate brokers significantly affect investors, customers and professional real estate brokers. Therefore, it is necessary to have solutions and appropriate sanctions to standardise the real estate brokers.

Nguyen Van Dinh, chairman of the Viet Nam Real Estate Brokers Association, has pointed out that at present, land fever has hit some localities making the real estate market unhealthy, which was partly contributed to by unprofessional real estate brokers.

Pham Lam, vice chairman of the Viet Nam Real Estate Brokers Association, has said that according to the association's statistics, Viet Nam has about 300,000 people working as real estate brokers. Every year, over 100,000 real estate transactions are conducted in both primary and secondary markets.

"This shows that the brokers play an extremely important role in promoting transactions," Lam said.

Therefore, the State management agency must manage this workforce to control the real estate market, said Lam. This would avoid the situation of unprofessional real estate brokers destabilising the market.

Nguyen Manh Khoi, deputy director of the Department of Housing and Real Estate Market Management, has also admitted the brokers' important role in the real estate market, so to promote their role, the broker must be properly trained to have real estate brokerage practising certificates.

Khoi also said that the domestic real estate market still lacked information, so there was a situation of property prices being pushed up by brokers.

To strengthen State management in construction activities, the Government has issued Decree 16/2022/ND-CP stipulating penalties for administrative violations in construction, including regulations on sanctions for real estate brokerage services.

According to Khoi, Decree 16 has strong sanctions for violations in brokerage activities, so brokerage agents must know clearly about those regulations. Otherwise, besides administrative sanctions, the trading contracts with customers will be cancelled, and the property trading floor will be halted.

The Ministry of Construction is studying to institutionalise real estate trading activities for the Law on Real Estate Trading to determine the role and subject of brokerage in the market, and regulations on the training of professional skills, responsibilities, and ethics of the brokers, said Khoi.

According to Nguyen Manh Ha, vice chairman of the Viet Nam Real Estate Association, there is currently chaos in information in the real estate market, such as real estate for sale in the wrong location with the incorrect prices to attract customers.

Even ineligible projects are also offered on the market. Therefore, in addition to increasing the supply of eligible real estate products for sale, it is necessary to have a coordination mechanism among ministries and sectors relating to the property market to manage transparent real estate information. A real estate broker must have a practising code to increase professionalism. — VNS