What is most important when buying a house?

With years of experience in sales and customer consulting, Mr. Duong Duc Hien, Director of Residential Sales at Savills Northern and Central Vietnam, stated that homebuyers in Vietnam still prioritize geographical location.

According to Mr. Hien, the top 7 criteria that customers in Vietnam prioritize include: Geographical location; Developer; Amenities; Quality of delivered product; Area and design of living space; Quality of residential area; and Construction contractor.

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

“The similarity lies in the fact that Vietnamese homebuyers also value factors such as living space size and design, neighborhood quality, and geographical location. However, the difference is that Vietnamese buyers still prioritize location above all else, unlike homebuyers in the UK, where urban planning separates residential and work areas. Given that our country's transportation infrastructure is not yet fully developed and public transport is not as widely used as in UK cities, geographical location remains paramount for a housing product,” Mr. Hien analyzed.

Another difference is that Vietnamese customers are not yet as concerned about 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 guarantee the quality of the housing product, such as the reputation of the developer, the competence of the construction contractor, the quality of the delivered product, and the amenities inside and outside the project.

"This is a lesson learned by customers from previous projects that were of low quality, delayed in handover, or not properly planned," Mr. Hien said.

Another interesting difference in the home-buying psychology of Vietnamese customers is the element of feng shui. This is a custom and a unique cultural aspect of East Asians in general and Vietnamese in particular. Homebuyers pay attention to the history, topography, and location of the land where the project is built, the direction of the main entrance of the house/apartment, and prioritize 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 homebuyers across the UK revealed the top seven most important criteria for homebuyers, in order: Low maintenance costs; Parking; Location; New home insurance; Size and design of living space; Quality of the neighborhood; Energy efficiency.

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