Cage home rents soar in Hanoi

In Cau Giay District, where high-rises have been mushrooming in recent years, Huy lives in a six-square-meter room whose rent has been hiked by 50% from a year ago to VND2 million (US$80) a month.

The hike has cut deep into the pocket of the ride-hailing driver who barely makes ends meet.

Situated deep inside an alley, the place is just big enough to fit a bed though it is all Huy needs since he spends most of the day on the road. "I only need a place to sleep," he says, adding he recently got a friend over to share the room to cover the higher rent.

A cage home of 6 square meters in Cau Giay District, Hanoi. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Diem

In Thanh Xuan District, college freshman Ngoc Tam has been told by her landlord that the rent for her five-square-meter home had been hiked by 20% to VND1.9 million.

It has barely enough space for a person to move around with a table, mini fridge, closet, and bed. She shares a kitchen and toilet with three neighbors. "I am moving to a new shared apartment with my friend. With the same rent I will get to live in a house triple the size."

VnExpress has found that rents for "cage homes" in Hanoi, as residential properties of less than 10 sq.m are disparagingly called, have risen by 15-20% this year.

In most cases these are cubicles in houses located deep inside alleys in downtown districts, and their rents are now VND1.8-2 million without utilities.

In some places where landlords have added fire safety features after several deadly fires in Hanoi this year, rents have risen by 30-50%.

In comparison, rents for normal apartments have only risen by 7-8%, according to property listing platform Batdongsan.

The rent hikes are double or even triple the rates of workers’ income growth. In the first six months an average worker earned a salary of VND7.5 million a month, up 7.4% year-on-year, according to the General Statistics Office.

In the suburbs, cage homes mostly preferred by factory workers have seen rents rise by 10% to VND500,000-800,000.

Workers' homes remain unrennovated for years in Dong Anh District, Hanoi. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Diem

Landlord Lai in Dong Anh District said he has hiked the rents for his eight rooms by 11% recently because of inflation.

For years he had kept them unchanged at VND500,000 a month to support workers.

Due to the low income, he has not been able to undertake any renovation for years, he said.

"Most of them are poor, and they might leave immediately if rents are raised."

Property analyst Le Quoc Kien said cage homes first became popular in Hanoi in 2018 and 2019 when many people rented entire houses and divided them into tiny portions to lease them out to people with low incomes.

A 16-square-meter house could be divided into four cubicles that generated total rents of VND7 million, almost double the cost of leasing the whole place, he said.

The recent fires in Hanoi have forced landlords to invest in fire safety equipment, and they are charging tenants more to cover those costs, he said.

Dinh Minh Tuan, director of Batdongsan, said there is high demand for cage homes, especially among people who only need a place to sleep at night.

To support low-income people, the government should develop more social housing for lease, he added.