Real estate in the season of catching the end of the year wave

Buyers' concerns about year-end price increases as well as investors' massive product launches have made the market much more vibrant in recent weeks.

For over a month now, Mr. Toan - a real estate broker - has noticed that business is much more favorable than in the second quarter. From mid-September until now, he has sold 3 luxury apartments and a villa.

"The buyers are all people I have been consulting for the past few months, but they are still hesitant. Recently, the market has had many new projects, many customers are also worried that house prices will increase at the end of the year, so they decided to put down money," he said. According to Mr. Toan, his colleagues are equally busy with the year-end sales race.

Mr. Chinh - another broker - has also been busier in the past month as the number of customers interested in buying houses has increased in all segments from apartments, villas, townhouses...“The last quarter of the year is usually the time to catch the biggest wave because many customers are worried about house prices being pushed up so they buy early. This year, the supply is forecast to be quite large so some investors have started one step ahead, launching beautiful products to the market earlier than expected,” said Mr. Chinh.

Therefore, since mid-September, to catch the market wave, many large and small investors in all segments have continuously launched products to the market. Products on the floors are diverse, so customers have more choices and transactions are easier to succeed. "I am selling up to 5 projects, instead of just 2 projects like at the end of August," said Mr. Chinh.

Both investors and distributors are racing during the period that usually has the best liquidity wave of the year. Photo: Tomas Slavicek

Mr. Vu Cuong Quyet - Director of Dat Xanh Real Estate in the North, commented that the market has been entering its peak period since the beginning of October with an increase in both the number of interested customers and supply.However, if 2015 was a period of explosive liquidity when speculative activities increased quite strongly, this year, the apartment market maintained a more stable transaction increase when most buyers had real housing needs.

The floor leader also said that this unit has made a comparison of selling prices in projects in the same area and segment in Hanoi, showing that this year is 6-8% higher than last year. And according to him, that may be the reason why many customers are worried that prices will be higher from now until the end of the year.

He also said that normally, liquidity at the lowest point and the highest point of the year will differ by 30-40%. Therefore, right from the beginning of the fourth quarter, after the projects were launched on the market, many customers immediately put down money to easily choose beautiful apartments.

In a market report published a few days ago by research and consulting firm CBRE, a total of 5,279 apartments were sold in the third quarter, one and a half times more than the previous quarter. Of which, the number of apartments sold in the high-end segment continued to show a growth trend since the beginning of 2016.

According to this unit, in the first 3 quarters of 2016, the number of apartments sold reached approximately 14,200 units.

“The positive market sentiment remains, with sales catching up relatively quickly with new launches. Looking ahead, the market is expected to continue to perform well in the final quarter of 2016. Both sales and launches are likely to continue to grow. Many projects will continue to launch in the final quarter of the year and are scattered in developing areas of the city,” CBRE’s report stated.

Ms. Do Thu Hang - Deputy Director of Savills Hanoi Research Department said that in the last quarter of the year and in 2017, the prices of apartments, villas and townhouses will continue to have positive developments.

She also assessed that in the apartment segment, if there were concerns about inventory issues in the past, now the market is moving towards investing in rental apartments, so this situation will not happen.

“In the context of foreign investment in Vietnam still progressing well, foreign experts have a great demand for housing, causing the occupancy rate of newly built high-rise buildings to be very fast, the number of vacant apartments is not much,” Ms. Hang commented. That is also the reason why buyers are more confident when making transactions.

According to VNE