Ho Chi Minh City real estate market still struggles with limited supply

Despite ongoing efforts to address legal bottlenecks and a hopeful outlook for a stronger recovery, Ho Chi Minh City’s real estate market continues to face daunting challenges due to the housing shortage.

Some recent market research reports revealed that the number of newly licensed projects and underway ones in the city remained minimal during the first half of 2025.

As for the apartment segment, only a handful of new launches have taken place.

The eastern part, particularly the former Thu Duc City, remains the focal point of new developments.

Under the national merger strategy, which took effect on July 1, 34 wards in Thu Duc City were merged into 12 wards.

The strategy features a two-tiered local government model, which includes the provincial level and the grassroots level consisting of communes and wards.

In May, Masterise Homes put up for sale the high-rise Lumiere Midtown project in the The Global City urban area, offering over 800 luxury apartments ranging from one to four bedrooms.

The developer had previously introduced the Masteri Grand View project, which is currently under construction.

Additionally, the investor plans to bring its low-rise Sola villa project to market soon, which could help increase the housing supply in the eastern part of the city.

Meanwhile, another Vietnamese enterprise is building the foundation of a new project near An Phu Intersection, alongside the ongoing Eaton Park project.

In the southern part of Ho Chi Minh City, real estate developer Phu Long has debuted the Essensia Parkway project, with just 74 units.

Although a wave of real estate projects has recently received investment approvals, adjusted investment licenses, and completed land valuation processes, most are still unable to launch.

Developers cited stringent construction permitting processes under revised housing and land laws as the main hurdle.

CBRE Vietnam told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that only 1,400 new apartments and 132 low-rise homes were launched in Ho Chi Minh City during the first half of 2025.

In the second quarter alone, just 1,000 apartments and 74 houses came to market.

Though the apartment supply in the second quarter of 2025 doubled against the previous quarter, the total supply in the first half was still 16 percent lower than the same period in 2024, marking the lowest first-half supply level since 2015.

CBRE forecast that the total new housing supply for the second half will remain modest.

Vo Huynh Tuan Kiet, director of housing marketing at CBRE Vietnam, noted most new launches in Ho Chi Minh City are high-end products.

As of the second quarter of 2025, the average primary price of apartments in the city had reached VND82 million (US$3,140) per square meter, reflecting a quarterly increase of nearly seven percent and a year-on-year surge of 29 percent, Kiet said.

Despite high prices, the purchase remained strong, with 74 percent of newly launched units sold in the first half.

Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, attributed the ongoing shortage of housing to unresolved legal challenges plaguing many projects.

These delays are constraining market diversity and pushing prices up.

Tieu Bac - Ngoc Hien / Tuoi Tre News

(2025/07/10-18:44)