As gloom continues to descend over South East Asian property markets, is Vietnam, which oversaw one of the fastest growing and then most rapidly descending markets going to be the first to bounce back?
Following a year long cycle of decline, the Vietnamese property market is beginning to show signs of life again and they are signs that prices might start to recover in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. In the capital city, nearly 400 off-plan apartments in Keangnam Tower were sold not long after construction on the building started. Lots in the Van Phu Urban Area and Xa La high-class apartment projects in Hanoi´s newly-merged Ha Dong city have also been magnetic to investors, and prices have gone up nearly 20 per cent since Tet. Last year, investors paid little attention to these and other projects, as land prices were in heavy decline.
“Vietnam real estate entered the downturn in late February 2008 when the State Bank of Vietnam capped lending growth at 30 percent over 2007 levels,” Brett Ashton, managing director of Savills Vietnam says. “Many banks had already experienced lending growth in the first two months at or near this level and so limited new loans to long time clients.
