Real estate giant takes action to quench “thirst“ for social housing

Since the beginning of this year, Hung Thinh Corporation, Vingroup, Novaland... have announced to build hundreds of thousands of social housing units and affordable housing units for workers.

Returning to Ho Chi Minh City after Covid-19 outbreak, Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Thuy (33 years old, from Quang Ngai) just changed to work as a worker for another garment company with better income than before the pandemic. Her husband and she cherish the dream of buying a small house for themselves and their family so that they can settle down and stick with the city for a long time.

"My salary is about VND 9 million, that of my husband is about VND 10 million. If we can work overtime, except for the rent, expenses for electricity, water, food, child care ... for the remaining savings we hope to accumulate gradually to buy a house, but I'm also worried about high house price so I don't know when we can save enough money to buy", she said.

The above dream and worries are not only of Ms. Thuy, but are the reality that has been existing with millions of workers living and working in Ho Chi Minh City as well as neighboring provinces. After Covid-19 pandemic, the problem of settling down for low-income workers becomes more urgent and requires the participation of the whole society.

8X Plus project in District 12, Ho Chi Minh City of Hung Thinh Corporation, in the chain of affordable apartment projects for young people 8X

Housing problem for low incomers 

According to the statistics from the Ministry of Construction, currently in the real estate market, the proportion of low incomers-dedicated housing is very low in total supply. Specifically, in the second quarter of 2022, the number of completed housing projects for low incomers nationwide was only 3 projects with 1,134 units in Kon Tum, Ninh Thuan. Currently, the number of social housing projects under construction nationwide is 96 projects with 123,514 units.

At the Conference on promoting social housing development on recent August 1, Minister of Construction Nguyen Thanh Nghi said that up to now, the whole country had completed 301 social housing projects in urban areas, housing projects for workers with a total scale of 156,000 units, total area of more than 7.79 million m2. There were 401 projects with about 455,000 unit having estimated area of 22,718 million m2 being deployed nationwide.

However, in the opening speech of the conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh pointed out the fact that the process of implementing policies on social housing only met a small part of the needs of workers.

"Recently, when I visited workers in many localities, many of their housing areas were still very narrow and difficult. The innkeepers shared but the solutions to the worker housing problem has still been spontaneous, not deployed methodically, not meeting the requirements on space, hygiene and environment," the Prime Minister said.

Mr. Le Hoang Chau - Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) also assessed that the real estate market was lacking housing supply, especially affordable commercial housing and social housing. The two segments was recording the highest demand but limited supply for many reasons.

In particular, according to Mr. Chau, enterprises, despite their enthusiasm and desire to participate in this segment, faced many difficulties because of many regulations and procedures such as: procedures for determining selling prices and land use levy, cost of compensation for site clearance, prolonged project investment procedures... On the other hand, from the buyer's perspective, there are also a lot of regulations and accompanying conditions that make people in need become difficult to access the supply of social housing, housing for workers. These obstacles "make it difficult" for both enterprises and low incomers who are "thirsty" for a place to settle down for their families.

Commitment of real estate giants 

In response to the difficult problem of social security, Minister of Construction Nguyen Thanh Nghi proposed to make an project to invest in building one million apartments for low incomers and industrial park workers for 2022-2030 period. This project is considered to "pave the way" for the development of social housing and affordable housing nationwide, in terms of the legal corridor and mobilizing total resources of the society.

Many real estate enterprises promoted the development of social housing, affordable housing for workers. Most recently, after the Conference on August 1, many major corporations announced the construction of social housing, including Vingroup with commitment of 500,000 units, Novaland with 200,000 units in the southern provinces and cities, mainly in Ho Chi Minh City and other enterprises such as Him Lam, Sun Group, Bitexco... who also participated in responding to the Government's common objective, the earliest this year, Hung Thinh Corporation: In January 2022, this Corporation announced the Affordable Housing Initiative.

Chairman of Hung Thinh Corporation, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Trung, said that the Corporation defined affordable housing development as the responsibility of the enterprise to society. For Hung Thinh, this is also the journey of the enterprise for the past 20 years, associated with affordable projects, creating a place to settle down for tens of thousands of households.

According to Mr. Trung, one of the biggest problems of social housing is how to make State agencies and enterprises come together to have comprehensive solutions and faciliate getting housing supply for everyone.

“Most people in major cities want to own a house for their life and sticking around for almost a lifetime. Therefore, owning a house is a big turning point, a dream, even a fortune that they must accumulate for a lifetime. The State has policies to support housing for people, banks have policies on loans and low interest rates. Enterprises in the supply chain from building materials, design, construction, development ... link together to create qualified houses at affordable prices. And it is important to have breakthrough and open mechanisms to facilitate the development of goods sources. Our Corporation is very pleased when the Government and ministries, led by the Ministry of Construction, are involved in solving the problem of affordable housing for a large number of people. Because for us, the greatest happiness is to bring home to everyone,” shared by Mr. Nguyen Dinh Trung.

The business representative said that with the land fund, experience, capacity and ability to mobilize the entire real estate value chain, Hung Thinh would build 150,000 social housing unit - affordable housing units in Ho Chi Minh City and expand to neighboring provinces.

Legal procedures and policy proposals from a business perspective are also being promoted, with the objective of calling for radical, synchronous and practical solutions to the existing social security problem for many years in the real estate market.

Previously, during the period of the real estate market freezing in 2008-2013 period, Hung Thinh also resonated when providing affordable product lines such as 8X Dam Sen, 8X Thai An, 8X Plus apartment chains... (HCMC) for less than VND 1 billion, solving the problem of settling down for the 8X generation to reside and make a living in Ho Chi Minh City.

The 8X Dam Sen project in Tan Phu district of Hung Thinh Corporation solved the problem of settling down for the 8X generation to reside and make a living in Ho Chi Minh City.

With the synergy of experienced, capable and enthusiastic enterprises, along with policy support, many experts will soon improve supply of social housing and low incomers-dedicated housing to solve the problem of social security and promote sustainable economic growth.