>>New property policy lures overseas Vietnamese, foreigners
Over 400 foreigners have been granted the “red book” (land use rights certificate under the Land Law) in Vietnam by August this year, a twofold increase compared to the number of foreigners having obtained the certificate before the Housing Law came into effect on July 1. It is not to mention over 500 overseas Vietnamese who have been permitted to own homes in the country.
The statistics were reported at a conference on unknotting bottlenecks for foreigners and overseas Vietnamese to buy houses in Vietnam, which was held by Thanh Nien (Youth) Newspaper in Ho Chi Minh City on September 14.
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| The conference on unknotting bottlenecks for foreigners and overseas Vietnamese to buy houses in Vietnam, which was held by Thanh Nien (Youth) Newspaper in Ho Chi Minh City on September 14__Photo: thanhnien.com.vn |
All conference participants agreed that the Housing Law’s provisions permitting foreigners and overseas Vietnamese to own houses in Vietnam led to an upturn in attracting foreign capital into Vietnam’s real estate market.
However, some insisted that adjustments should be made to the regulation that housing projects may sell no more than 30 percent of their products and no more than 250 apartments or houses in a ward or commune to foreigners.
They added that because of high density of foreigners living in downtown districts of major cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, those limits should be removed for housing projects in such areas to sell houses to foreigners.
According to Nguyen Manh Khoi, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Construction's Department of Housing Management and Real Estate Market, the foreign house ownership rate would hardly be changed as it had been approved by the National Assembly.
On the other hand, experts also shared the view that tardiness in issuing documents guiding the Housing Law, along with relevant regulations, had created difficulties for foreigners to buy houses.
Regarding this, Khoi said that those documents had been submitted to the Government for approval and were expected to be issued right in September.- (VLLF)
