Covid-19 impact: HCMC apartment sales plummets

By Dat Nguyen April 2, 2020 | 06:16 pm PT

Apartment buildings in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

Q1 apartment sales in HCMC dropped by over 50 percent year-on-year as the novel coronavirus pandemic dampened the market.

Just 54 percent of available units, 1,980, were sold, the lowest ratio since Q2 2017, according to a recent report by real estate market research firm JLL.

Most of the sold units were Grade B and Grade C apartments in projects which had opened for sales before the outbreak reached Vietnam.

New supply fell to the lowest since 2014 at 2,256 units. Most promotion events were suspended over the outbreak, now declared a national epidemic.

JLL had estimated 20,000-30,000 units to enter the HCMC market this year, but this could fall further.

Another report by Vietnam Association of Realtors (VARS) showed that 11 apartment projects came online in Q1 in HCMC, down eight projects from Q4 last year.

These projects contributed 5,500 units, a third of last year’s Q4 figure in Q4 last year.

Tran Minh Hoang, Deputy Secretary of VARS, said that Vietnam’s real estate sector was caught in a challenging situation that will only improve when the disease is contained.