At a news briefing onApril 2, CBRE senior manager Nguyen Hoa An said almost all transactionswere made for the mid-end segment, but the high-end one, with apartmentspriced at over 30 million VND (1,430 USD) per square metre, also soldwell.
Over the period, prices of mid-end apartments in Hanoi’ssecondary market bounced back after decreasing for 11 straight quartersand they rose by 1.1 percent from Q4 of 2013.
Most of the pricehikes were made for completed projects with sufficient facilities, whilemany projects nearing completion also attract buyers, she added.
CBRE’sstatistics show that 1,540 residential units from four projects inHanoi went on sale in Q1, up 17 percent from a year earlier. On theother hand, the construction of 2,716 units was also finalised.
Ansaid the completion of many housing projects in 2014 will cause morefierce competition with existing on-sale apartments as buyers favourcompleted or nearly completed projects to avoid quality or progressproblems.
A brighter situation has also been observed in thevilla and semi-detached market. Some projects were offered with lowerprices, thus directly competing with mid-end and affordable apartmentsworth 2 billion – 3 billion VND (95,240 – 142,860 USD) per unit.
Annoted that an increasing number of investors have been offeringpromotion programmes, for example providing free services, issuingmembership cards, and accepting various forms of payment in order toattract buyers.
Due to an abundant supply and keen competitionfrom mid-end and affordable projects, such promotions are effectivemeasures to accelerate selling, the CBRE expert said.
In terms ofserviced apartments, those located in Tay Ho district and downtownHanoi were still preferred. Most of the clients are from Japan and theRepublic of Korea, since investment from these two countries is beingstrongly poured into industrial parks in nearby Hai Phong city and BacNinh and Thai Nguyen provinces.
Once a Samsung factory in ThaiNguyen and the Hanoi – Thai Nguyen highway become operational, demandfor serviced apartments in the capital and its surrounding areas willburgeon, according to CBRE.-VNA