100 million speculation on luxury apartments, the bitter end of a young mother

While on maternity leave, Mai attended a real estate seminar and decided to invest in an apartment with her husband's savings. When the matter was discovered, Mai had borrowed more than half a billion VND but could not sell the apartment.

Risked borrowing half a billion to buy a house

After giving birth, Nguyen Thi Quynh Mai (26 years old, Hanoi) thought about doing something to supplement her husband's income. Reading online and watching Facebook, she saw that the real estate market was hot, so she decided to learn more. Mai left her child with her grandmother to attend a sales event of a real estate company.

With enthusiastic advice from the staff, Mai felt that she could make money by investing in luxury apartments. In her savings book, there was 100 million VND, the money that the couple had saved. Mai secretly withdrew it to buy an apartment of nearly 80 square meters in My Dinh, with a total amount of more than 3 billion VND.

According to Mai's calculation, once the purchase is placed, if the market goes up, Mai can surf the wave and earn tens of millions in a short time.

The staff kept calling Mai to urge her to put down a deposit, making her think the market must be hot. Most of the beautiful apartments were advertised online with a difference of more than 100 million VND.

After paying the deposit for the apartment, Mai planned to find a buyer. All day long, Mai went on classifieds and social networks to advertise the apartment. She also took the opportunity to call some partners to ask if they were interested in buying the house. After more than a month, the project was about to enter into a contract while Mai still could not settle the apartment.

Ambition to make money from apartment trading. Illustration photo.

Impatient with the large amount of money that had to be paid if the contract was signed, Mai called the sales staff for advice. At this time, she received the answer: "You should leave it because the more the house is handed over, the more valuable it will be. At that time, the nice houses will be worth hundreds of millions of dong more."

Deciding to keep the apartment for investment, Mai was also embarrassed when she did not have enough money to pay the first installment. Reluctantly, Mai asked to borrow from her parents and siblings, but they kept it a secret. Meanwhile, Mai continued to look for customers, but everything was hopeless.

Unable to borrow money, unable to sell the house, and running away would cost hundreds of millions of dong, Mai had to share the truth with her husband and family. At this point, the whole family was shocked. The amount of money Mai had borrowed was up to 500 million dong. Mai did not know how to handle the next phases of the project.

Mai and her husband have been in trouble since then. The whole family tried to save the situation, such as asking a broker to sell it for them, but it seemed like they all tried to refuse or forced them to pay a very high commission. Mai's family had to find a way to sell the apartment at a loss of hundreds of millions.

Surfing is over

In fact, in recent times, the huge supply and high prices have made the apartment market less attractive than before. Outside speculators like Mai easily receive bitter fruit.

Mr. Nguyen Vu Long, sales director of a real estate company, said that the market is facing difficulties, especially in projects priced at several billion, buyers have many choices so selling at a higher price to make a profit is completely impossible.

According to Mr. Long, the reason why brokers are often not interested in sold apartments is because they still have to bear the sales quota imposed by the floor. The supply from investors is quite abundant, so buyers do not want to buy houses that have to be notarized...

Apartment supply increased sharply.

From the perspective of a consulting unit, Ms. Nguyen Hoai An - Director of CBRE Hanoi, commented that apartment prices have decreased. The relatively rapid growth in primary supply has somewhat put pressure on the market, with average prices tending to decrease, especially in completed projects, with a decrease of 3% quarterly, equivalent to 12% annually. A similar price decrease has also occurred in the secondary market.

“Currently, it is very difficult for home buyers to expect to make a profit in a short period of time. This is very different from the market a few years ago. We have seen this trend in Ho Chi Minh City and now in Hanoi,” Ms. An emphasized.

According to CBRE statistics, in 2017, the supply of apartments in Hanoi reached a record high of 35,000 units, 3 times higher than 4 years ago. In the third quarter of 2017 alone, the Hanoi market welcomed nearly 8,300 new apartments for sale from 38 projects across the city, mainly concentrated in the West and Southwest regions, accounting for 60% of the new supply.

Although apartment prices are on a downward trend, the supply of apartments is still massive. In 2018 and 2019, the market will continue to welcome nearly 70,000 more apartments.

It can be said that the apartment market is entering a difficult period, those who want to invest but are not financially strong enough need to consider carefully to avoid unfortunate risks. The lesson of the collapse of real estate surfing in the past is a warning to unprofessional investors.