Foreign investors will come…

The real estate projects with “clean land” (the compensation for site clearance has been completed), the buildings belonging to the enterprises which need to restructure their investment portfolios are the things hunted by foreign investors.

As domestic investors are seriously thirsty for capital, they have to bargain away their projects. And this is the golden opportunity for foreigners to buy the assets at low prices.

In early this second quarter, General Director of Hung Viet Company Ltd and South Korean KRDF03 Sang Hun Oh revealed that they were seeking to purchase finished multi-storey buildings.

In late April 2013, local newspapers reported that Thomas Kramer, the German well-known venture investor would arrive in Vietnam in July 2013 to seek the investment opportunity during his six-day stay here.

Sources said the investor is seeking the Vietnamese developers who can transfer the certificates for “clean land” use right. He is considering building the complexes of green hotels and apartments.

A real estate consultancy firm in HCM City had the meetings with the Japanese and Hong Kong’s groups of investors during which they discussed the opportunities to buy the real estate projects at low prices in the central area of HCM City.

The investors from Asia are looking for the buildings which can be put into operation at once in a preparation plan to access the Vietnamese market in the post-crisis period.

In late March 2013, John Sheehan, the Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, during his working visit to HCM City, said as soon as Vietnam amends the legal framework to settle the bad debts, foreign capital would flow into the market.

He said that the biggest obstacle that prevents the foreign capital from entering Vietnam is the slow bad debt settlement process. The experts said many assets listed as the bad debts in Vietnam still have been overvalued if compared with the real estate prices in other ASEAN countries.

…but they will only pay low for the assets

The representative of the above said consultancy firm in HCM City said the negotiations with the Japanese and Hong Kong’s investors have not come to an end yet, because the foreign investors still try to haggle over the projects. They believe that the assets have been overvalued in the context of the gloomy real estate market in Vietnam.

Deputy Director of Dat Lanh Real Estate Firm -- Nguyen Van Duc, has warned that a lot of real estate projects would be taken over by foreign investors in some days at the rock bottom prices.

“There are numerous half-finished projects on sale because the projects’ developers don’t have money to continue the projects,” Duc noted.

He went on to say that the foreign investors would revive the real estate projects by injecting money in them. However, as it is now the buyers’ market, the price would be forced down by 50 percent at least.

Huynh Kim Dan, Director of Eden Real Company, has noted that foreign investors have just come to explore the situation, while they have not “taken actions” yet. Though they are really interested in the market, they still keep cautious with the transactions.

Doan said the foreign investors are not interested in apartment projects, and they only want high rise office buildings in the central area and the completely done hotels or coastal resorts.