HCMC luxury apartment developers race to claim record high prices

An artist’s impression of a luxury apartment project in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo courtesy of Keenland.

The initial price of a luxury apartment project in District 1’s Da Kao Ward, was around $6,500-8,000 per square meter in 2018, which was the highest price for an apartment project then. As of April 2021, the price has surged to $7,500-9,800 per square meter.

At a recently launched luxury apartment project on Ton Duc Thang Street, which runs alongside the Saigon River in District 1, apartments are priced at $18,000 per square meter, the highest Q1 rate in the country.

In April 2019, another apartment project on the same street had an asking price of VND280 million per square meter, a record high then.

Luxury apartment prices in the Saigon riverside area has soared by around 50 percent in two years. Most real estate consultancies define a luxury apartment as one that is priced $4,000 per square meter or higher.

The highest priced apartment project in erstwhile Thu Duc District, located on Vo Van Nghia street, has a price tag of $4,000 per square meter.

The average price of luxury apartment projects in HCMC hit $6,898 per square meter in Q1, up 4.7 percent year-on-year, according to real estate consultancy CBRE Vietnam.

A VnExpress study has found that the prices of luxury apartments in HCMC’s District 1 have been surging as a decision was taken by the city's People's Committee in January to limit construction of new high-rises in the city center until 2025.

The decision aimed to allow the city to map out plans for the development of its overloaded technical and social infrastructure, according to the city’s Department of Construction.

The CEO of a property company in HCMC told VnExpress that prices of luxury units were rising because of low supply. Even if a project can have several thousand units, the investors usually sell the apartments in small quantities, not all of them at one go, he said.

Duong Thuy Dung, senior director of CBRE Vietnam, forecast that luxury apartment prices in Vietnam will hit $35,000 per square meter by 2030.