When buying a house, what is most important?

With many years of experience in sales and customer consulting, Mr. Duong Duc Hien, Director of Savills Residential Sales in North and Central Vietnam, said: Home buyers in Vietnam still put geographical location first.

According to Mr. Hien, the Top 7 criteria that customers in Vietnam prioritize include: Geographical location; Investor; Utilities; Quality of delivered products; Area and design of living space; Quality of residential area; Construction contractor.

Comparing emerging markets like Vietnam with developed housing markets like the UK, Mr. Hien sees certain similarities and differences.

“The similarity is that Vietnamese homebuyers also value factors such as living space area and design, residential area quality and geographical location. However, the difference is that Vietnamese people still value location the most, unlike homebuyers in the UK, where there is a special planning feature that separates living and working areas. In the context of our country's underdeveloped transport infrastructure and public transport not being widely used like in cities in the UK, the geographical location factor still plays a crucial role in a housing product,” Mr. Hien analyzed.

Another difference is that Vietnamese customers are not really interested in criteria such as maintenance costs or energy efficiency because electricity prices and service fees (including maintenance) in Vietnam are not as expensive as in the UK. Instead, customers are more interested in factors that ensure the quality of housing products such as the reputation of the investor, the capacity of the construction contractor, the quality of the delivered products and the internal and external facilities of the project.

"This is the experience customers have learned from previous lessons in low-quality projects, slow delivery progress or lack of proper planning," said Mr. Hien.

Another interesting difference in the home buying psychology of Vietnamese customers is the feng shui factor. This is a custom and a unique cultural feature of Asians in general and Vietnam in particular. Home buyers will pay attention to the history, terrain and topography of the land on which the project is built, the direction of the main door of the house/apartment and prioritize choosing projects and products that are considered to have good feng shui.

Previously, a survey conducted by Savills UK and the NHBC Foundation with 5,400 new home buyers across the UK showed that the Top 7 most important criteria for home buyers, in order: Low maintenance costs; Parking; Geographical location; New home insurance; Living space area and design; Residential quality; Energy efficiency.

Notably, none of the amenities-related factors were emphasized enough to make it into the top 7 when analyzing survey results by population density or customer type.