Increase supply, reduce costs, bring real estate prices to an appropriate level

On the afternoon of September 22, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Head of the Central Steering Committee on Housing Policy and the Real Estate Market, chaired the conference to announce the decision on the consolidation of the Steering Committee and the first meeting of the Committee.

Attending the meeting were members of the Party Central Committee: Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha, Deputy Head of the Steering Committee; Minister of Construction Tran Hong Minh, Deputy Head of the Steering Committee; Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Tran Van Son; Vice President of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Ha Thi Nga; leaders of ministries, agencies, and localities; and representatives of enterprises, banks, and associations.

692 social housing projects are being implemented with a total scale of 633,559 units.

According to reports and opinions presented at the conference, in recent times, the work of completing the institutional framework and legal normative documents related to the housing sector and real estate market has been amended and supplemented to suit practical conditions.

The Government and the Prime Minister have focused on leadership and direction, while ministries, sectors, and localities have decisively implemented tasks and solutions, removing difficulties, obstacles, and bottlenecks.

From the beginning of the term until now, the Steering Committee has advised the Government and the Prime Minister in issuing 22 resolutions, 16 directives, and numerous official dispatches to regulate activities related to the real estate market and social housing development, achieving very positive results.

In the first nine months of 2025, the real estate market recorded some positive signs of recovery. Nationwide, there are over 1,000 commercial housing projects, of which 960 projects are under construction, with a total scale of nearly 149,000 apartment units and more than 249,000 individual houses. Several localities have actively developed and established model urban areas with synchronized infrastructure and functions, contributing to improving the quality of urban development.

Many programs and schemes for social housing development have been actively implemented and have achieved positive results. To date, nationwide, 692 social housing projects are being implemented with a total scale of 633,559 units, including: 165 completed projects with 110,436 units; 147 projects under construction with 135,033 units; and 380 projects approved for investment policy with 388,090 units.

The total number of real estate transactions reached over 430,000, showing a slight increase compared to the same period in 2024.

Regarding housing support for people with meritorious services to the revolution under Decision No. 21/2024/ PM Decision dated November 22, 2024, the program has been basically completed, with support provided to 34,754 households nationwide. For housing support for poor and near-poor households in poor districts, assistance has been provided to 85,894 households, achieving a 100% coverage rate. The national Program for eliminating temporary and dilapidated houses was completed 5 years and 4 months ahead of schedule, with 334,000 houses repaired or newly built.

Outstanding real estate loans increase, but bad debts are controlled

After hearing reports, opinions, and concluding remarks, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed the very clear policy of the Party and State: under no circumstances should fairness, progress, and social welfare be sacrificed in pursuit of mere growth; ensuring citizens’ right to housing with the spirit of “an cu lac nghiep” (stable housing for career stability); the highest goal of our Party and State is to secure independence and freedom for the nation and to improve the spiritual and material life of the people toward greater prosperity and happiness.

The Prime Minister emphasized that the Government and the Prime Minister are determined to build and develop a stable, safe, healthy, open, and transparent real estate market, in compliance with the laws of a socialist-oriented market economy under the leadership of the Party and the management of the State. It is necessary to clearly identify what is obstructed, where the obstacles lie, their extent, and the responsibilities of each person and level, the Prime Minister stated.

According to the Prime Minister, properly implementing housing policies and developing the real estate market will contribute to rapid and sustainable national development, promote high growth, control inflation, ensure the major balances of the economy, and contribute to the development of civilized, modern urban and rural areas.

To achieve this goal, all relevant stakeholders must unite with the Government, build on what has been done well, and promptly, quickly, flexibly, and effectively identify and remove difficulties and obstacles.

The head of the Government stated that, in order to help remove difficulties and develop the real estate market, breakthroughs in institutional frameworks and infrastructure have been, are being, and will continue to be promoted.

Recently, legal obstacles have been addressed very proactively. General Secretary To Lam has issued many important directives on improving the institutional and legal framework, including several provisions related to the real estate market and housing policies. The Prime Minister noted that the approach is to report to the competent authorities for the continued issuance of appropriate legal documents to resolve issues, while simultaneously amending relevant laws. In parallel, strategic infrastructure development is being promoted to help reduce input costs for the real estate sector, lower prices, increase competitiveness, and improve public access to housing.

The Prime Minister stated that these efforts have achieved positive results. The real estate market is recovering positively; this supports banks in reducing non-performing loans (according to the SBV’s report, real estate loan balances are increasing in the right direction while non-performing loans are being controlled; this will help stimulate the market in the near future due to the necessary time lag), projects that were previously stalled have resumed and returned to growth; social housing has shown very positive developments. Notably, industrial and logistics real estate have developed well.

Actively resolving difficulties related to institutions, mechanisms, and policies helps this market develop in a healthy, safe, and breakthrough manner, while remaining equitable and efficient, contributing to improved housing conditions for the people.

Commercial housing prices must be appropriate to the nature of the market, the economy, and the income of the people.

In addition to the fundamentally achieved results, the Prime Minister emphasized that efforts must be made to ensure that commercial housing prices are reasonable, in line with the nature of the market, compatible with Vietnam’s economy, and appropriate to the income of the people; the goal is for citizens to have convenient and suitable housing, contributing to the improvement of both their material and spiritual lives. The Prime Minister also noted that the 145 trillion VND credit package for social housing loans has not yet been widely disbursed.

Affirming that the development of the real estate market and social housing is a major national and public issue of great importance, the Prime Minister stated that comprehensive, overarching, transparent, and effective solutions are required; this demands close coordination between the Central Government and localities, the State and businesses, citizens, and between fiscal policy, monetary policy, and other policies.

The Prime Minister directed several groups of tasks and solutions for the near future:

First, raising awareness and responsibility among the relevant stakeholders, ensuring appropriate thinking, decisive action, and emphasizing the accountability of leadership.

Second, continuing to remove obstacles related to the institutional, mechanism, and policy framework to ensure transparency and convenience. For example, the Prime Minister suggested that, in addition to the regulation requiring a minimum of 20% of commercial housing project area for social housing, consideration should be given to applying a provision allocating 20% of social housing project area for commercial housing.

Third, review and reduce administrative procedures, accelerate decentralization and delegation related to the real estate market and social housing by competent authorities, in order to reduce compliance costs for citizens and businesses. The guiding principle is “local authorities decide, local authorities implement, local authorities take responsibility,” shifting the approach from primarily controlling and “if you cannot manage, then prohibit” to development-oriented and service-oriented for citizens and businesses.

Fourth, implement measures to lower real estate prices and increase supply to meet demand, through resolving pending projects, promoting social housing, reducing land prices, lowering costs, and addressing infrastructure issues related to transportation, electricity, water, and telecommunications.

Fifth, regarding land prices, the Prime Minister requires strengthening the state’s role in management and regulation; ensure efficient land use; simplify procedures, make them transparent, reduce pre-approvals, and focus on post-approvals.

Sixth, utilize fiscal policies on taxes, fees, and charges for regulation, contributing to cost reduction, and employ other policy instruments such as lending, bond issuance, etc.

Seventh, study new regulations on income thresholds for purchasing social housing while allowing localities to flexibly adjust.

Eighth, the SBV (State Bank of Vietnam) studies mechanisms and policies regarding lending interest rates, loan terms, and convenient procedures; establish policies and sanctions appropriate for banks performing well and those performing inadequately; banks should continue promoting responsibility, national solidarity, and applying science and technology to reduce costs.

Ninth, localities should balance budgets to invest in infrastructure and support loan interest rates. Ministries should soon complete the legal framework and procedures for establishing the National Housing Fund, to be finalized in September.

Tenth, regulations on material prices should include fluctuation coefficients suitable to market variations; localities are tasked with implementation to ensure transparency and practicality.

Eleventh, the Ministry of Construction studies for the Government to issue a resolution, assigning capable and committed enterprises to implement certain social housing projects based on the principle of harmonizing the interests of the State, citizens, and businesses.

The Prime Minister emphasized the need to act while learning lessons, gradually expand, avoid perfectionism and haste; what is mature, clear, proven effective in practice, and widely agreed upon should be codified into law, while issues still in flux should be regulated through sub-law provisions.

Ha Van

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