~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

[Year 1997]
[Year 1998]
[Year 1999]
[Year 2000]
[Year 2001]
[Year 2002]

Wary of Vietnam's property market

Overseas Vietnamese remain wary of investing in Vietnam's red-hot real-estate market, despite their growing desire to purchase retirement homes. While Hanoi issued a decree last November aimed at facilitating housing sales to Vietnamese with foreign passports, there are remarkably few takers--only two homes in Ho Chi Minh City have been sold to overseas Vietnamese, and none in Hanoi. One reason is that the decree does not explicitly provide an overseas Vietnamese buyer with the right to resell the house.

While officials insist that such a right should be implicitly understood, others demur. "You have to state it clearly," says Nguyen Ngoc My, chairman of the Overseas Vietnamese Business Club. Another factor is cumbersome paperwork. Eligible buyers, limited to one home apiece, must be certified by the state as falling into certain categories as investors, researchers, or "persons who have made valuable contributions to the nation." More detailed guidelines were slated to be issued in June, but the matter is bogged down between myriad ministries. "It's too problematic," says one Ho Chi Minh City investment consultant, adding that the scarcity of bank loans has also frightened off potential buyers.

The Far Eastern Economic Review - July 11, 2002.