An overview of the session. — VNA/VNS Photo Doãn Tấn

The National Assembly (NA) on Monday morning discussed the real estate market and what could be done to stop speculators and soaring prices.

Deputies were discussing supervision results of 'conducting policies and laws on real estate market management and social housing development from 2015 to the end of 2023'.

Reporting the supervision results to the NA, Chairman of the Economic Committee Vũ Hồng Thanh said that with attention and drastic direction of the Party and the State, the promulgation and implementation of policies and laws on real estate market management and social housing development in recent times had achieved many remarkable results.

The achievements contributed effectively to socio-economic and urban development and improve people's living conditions.

In the period of 2015-23, the real estate market made progress in terms of scale, type, quantity, form of capital resources and participants. It created a large amount of material facilities for the society, helped realise social security policies, gradually meeting the people’s housing needs.

However in addition to the achieved results, the real estate and social housing market still had many shortcomings, inadequacies, supply and demand imbalance, real estate prices were still high compared to the income of the majority of people.

Many urban sites were abandoned, with some projects stuck or slow, management of mini apartments still had many shortcomings and there was no effective solution to handle old apartment buildings that did not ensure living conditions for people.

Moreover, new types of real estate faced many legal problems, lacking clear and specific regulations.

The Supervisory Delegation recommended that the Government, the Prime Minister, concerned agencies and organisations should review the existing problems and limitations of policies and laws in real estate market management and social housing development that have been identified and adjusted in the laws, regulations and instructions that have been issued.

The existing problems and limitations needed to be further studied, resolved and have synchronous and specific solutions to overcome.

From there, it would be targeted to develop a safe, healthy and sustainable real estate market, diversify products, harmonise supply and demand, increase the supply of real estate in accordance with people's income, meet housing needs and ensure social security.

In addition, suitable resolution mechanism was needed to thoroughly handle real estate projects facing difficulties, legal problems and stagnation due to the prolonged realisation process.

Giving his opinion on the discussion, delegate Nguyễn Văn An from Thái Bình northern province, said that, in general, the tasks and solutions proposed in the draft resolution on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of policies and laws on real estate market management and social housing were not really specific enough.

The draft resolution set a target of building at least one million social housing apartments for low-income earners and industrial park workers in the 2021-30 period. But, this was only a general policy and did not have specific directions.

The draft resolution needed to stipulate additional tasks and solutions to limit the situation of buying social housing for resale, and at the same time promote the construction of social housing from the State budget for rent in the coming time.

Regarding land valuation, An said that although the report pointed out many shortcomings, limitations and major obstacles, the solutions were not detailed enough to solve practical problems.

Therefore, it was necessary to review and perfect the solutions with a clear timeline to solve the problems.

Solutions for price speculation

Many delegates raised issues that voters were worried about, such as price inflation, disrupting market information and real estate prices in some big cities which soared in recent times.

Delegate Nguyễn Thị Thuỷ from Bắc Kạn northern province pointed out the fact that the real estate market showed signs of instability recently after it had just recovered.

Not only in the central areas, but the heat had also spread to suburban districts, especially the sudden increase in prices of apartments, both new and old, doubling, even tripling compared to the previous period.

She believed that speculation and price inflation were the main reasons for the recent high housing prices. And there was currently a serious shortage of supply for low-income earners.

Therefore, the Government needed to have attractive policies to encourage businesses to develop the commercial housing segment to suit the budgets of the majority of workers, she said.

Delegate Hoàng Văn Cường, from Hà Nội, suggested to require auction participants to prove their financial ability to purchase assets to limit those who only bid for resale.

At the same time, a mechanism must be built to manage professional real estate trading floors in major cities to transparently manage market operations. — VNS