The country’s real estate market has seen positive signs for recovery following the economic reopening, experts said.

Nguyen Van Dinh, General Secretary of the Viet Nam Real Estate Brokers Association, told the conference "Viet Nam Real Estate: New Normal - New Trend - New Demand" on Wednesday that in the three COVID-19 outbreaks in 2020, after the pandemic was controlled, the real estate market rebounded very quickly and became more active till the beginning months of this year. The proof was that in many localities at that time, the land “fever” continued.

“In the context of the pandemic, the property market was affected, but there was no freeze. The market has not stopped. That shows the health and internal strength of the local estate market is very good,” he said.

According to a recent report by the Viet Nam Real Estate Association, in the third quarter of 2021, there were still tens of thousands of real estate transactions taking place. Although in the period, many localities implemented social distancing according to the Prime Minister’s Directive 16 to prevent and control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dinh added that the real estate sector has adapted to the pandemic, applying technology to introduce products and conducting transactions with customers.

Tran Dinh Thien, former director of the Viet Nam Institute of Economics, said experience shows that, every time the economy is in trouble, the real estate market recovers clearly and takes the lead in the recovery process.

“This time I think it will happen again, when we return to the new normal. The property market will recover initially,” Thien said.

Another reason was that the global real estate market is recovering, which will bring positive signals to the domestic market.

"The number of transactions in the last quarter of this year is showing signs of increasing. Developers not only choose the time to launch at the end of the year, but buyers are also more confident when they pour money into the market,” he said.

Vo Tri Thanh, Director of the Institute for Brand and Competitive Strategy, also said that real estate investment has many prospects when it returns to the new normal. In the past two years, in many countries around the world and Viet Nam, real estate has been still a bright spot, with good liquidity and prices.

“From a consumer perspective, it is difficult because of the increase in real estate prices. This reflects the shift in lifestyle, living green, living well, happily, safely, leading to the trend of real estate relocation,” Thanh said.

Nguyen Manh Khoi, Deputy Director of the Housing and Real Estate Market Management Department under the Ministry of Construction, said that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the property sector still had positive signals, especially in the first half of the year with 55,000 successful real estate transactions. There were only 43,000 transactions for the whole last year.

“Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the real estate market has received great attention. In the past three years, real estate prices have still increased. Some areas have recently seen surging prices in the land segment. However, this increase was due to a number of groups of brokers, speculators, and demand stimulus, so the price quickly dropped,” Khoi said.

However, in recent years, out of nearly 5,000 real estate projects implemented, there are thousands of projects under construction. Many of which have problems related to legal procedures and long waiting times for resolution. This shortcoming impacts the development of new projects.

He said that the Ministry of Construction is working with other ministries and sectors to facilitate real estate trading by amending the Investment Law 2020 and the Law on Construction.

Accordingly, in 2021, the Decree guiding the Law on Real Estate Business and the Decree on the real estate market information system would be issued.

“We forecast these two documents will have a great impact on the market," he added. — VNS