Speeding up asset liquidation, investing in infrastructure development or taxing houses are proposals to speed up the process of handling abandoned villas.

For many years, people have been impatient to see abandoned villas worth thousands of billions of dong in Hanoi, but the authorities seem to be "slow" and have not yet come up with any solutions to show their determination to deal with this problem. As a result, billion-dollar villas are left unattended, leading to a series of worrying consequences such as environmental pollution, social instability, and urban slovenliness...

Mr. Tran Ngoc Quang - General Secretary of the Vietnam Real Estate Association said that investors must invest heavily in infrastructure to attract people to live in abandoned villas.

The story is even more worth pondering when thousands of billions of dong are being buried here, while to build each meter of road, each bridge section, our country still has to borrow foreign capital. This paradox shows that it is time to find a way to completely resolve the abandoned villas.

For the past 10 years, the Le Van Luong extension road leading to Trung Van urban area, Nam Tu Liem district, Hanoi has been spacious, many constructions and buildings have sprung up, but it has not been able to "change the face" of the urban areas with a series of villas still in the original red brick color, accompanied by moss and mold of time.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hiep, who lives near this urban area, is heartbroken that each villa of over 100 square meters is now full of rubbish, and the basement has become a stagnant pond. Regretting every inch of land, every inch of gold, many households have taken advantage of the land around the villas to grow vegetables to improve their lives.

“Along this road, there are many abandoned villas that look very unpleasant, wasting people’s and businesses’ money, so there needs to be a solution. Meanwhile, villas are built and left abandoned, while people have no land to farm,” said Ms. Hiep.

On the brick walls of each villa appeared the words “house for sale”. Calling a phone number, we learned that these apartments all had owners, they bought them from 2005 to 2011 and wanted to transfer them at a price of 87-90 million VND/m2.

This person also said that in 2011, the price of each square meter of this villa was up to 140 million VND. That golden age is no longer, now the abandoned villas worth tens of billions of VND, even if they are discounted, it is difficult to find buyers and residents.

This situation is happening in many suburban areas of Hanoi, typically Nam An Khanh Urban Area, Thien Duong Bao Son Urban Area, Kim Chung - Di Trach Urban Area, Lideco Urban Area (Hoai Duc District), Quang Minh 1 and Quang Minh 2 Urban Areas (Me Linh District)...

Economist Nguyen Tri Hieu said that abandoned villas are not only wasteful but also related to the problem of bad debt. The State's mechanisms and policies need to quickly resolve this issue, helping banks to handle the collateral assets that are still buried in real estate.

“The assets are in beautiful locations with many villas built in a grand manner but then left empty without anyone living there. While the streets and traffic are still limited, capital is needed to solve social security problems... so it is a waste. But to change, adjust, and use such assets to avoid waste, the problem of liquidating collateral assets and bad debt must be solved. All banks and authorities need to find a way to turn those assets into useful assets for the people,” Mr. Hieu analyzed.

Mr. Tran Ngoc Quang, General Secretary of the Vietnam Real Estate Association, commented that most of the abandoned villas in Hanoi have owners, either speculators or residents, but no one lives in them or buys them because the infrastructure is not yet available. Therefore, investors must invest heavily in infrastructure to attract residents.

Mr. Tran Ngoc Quang said that this waste shows that we need to address a larger issue of real estate ownership in Vietnam in order to take advantage of social resources.

“While many people have the potential to buy abandoned villas, the State is having to borrow money from abroad to invest in technical infrastructure, and many people do not have a house. Therefore, there needs to be a policy to control home ownership for current investors, only then can we limit and reduce abandoned villas,” Mr. Quang expressed his opinion.

Agreeing that it is impossible to continue to allow a series of abandoned villas to exist, which not only causes waste, but also disfigures the urban landscape, easily becomes a place to store waste, is unsanitary, pollutes the environment, and is a "residence" for social evils, Mr. Pham Sy Liem - Vice President of the Vietnam Construction Association suggested that it is time to consider a plan to collect property tax to both limit the situation of buying villas and then abandoning them, and contribute to overcoming current budget difficulties.

“We need to tax property. Whether the villa is used or not, but the owner has property, he must pay tax. Other countries call it property tax, our country calls it land tax, but currently we do not collect house tax, we only collect land tax in the form of non-agricultural land use tax. There must be a law to collect tax. Now I think it is time, because the current budget is seriously short, on the one hand we have to reduce spending, currently we have reduced public investment spending, but on the other hand we also have to find sources of revenue,” Mr. Liem proposed.

Obviously, the situation of abandoned and moldy villas cannot be allowed to continue to exist. It is time for the authorities and responsible people to get involved and join hands to find new, innovative ways to resolutely handle this asset, avoid waste and create more resources for the national budget./.

According to VOV