Insight: Has Vietnam's real-estate market spun out of control?

Property developers discuss a building plan at a construction site in Vietnam.

In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, over 50% of newly supplied residential properties are priced above 100 million Vietnamese dong per square meter (approximately RMB 26,000 yuan).

This means a well-to-do Vietnamese family needs to spend 9 or10 years of savings to purchase a home, while average families would require more than 35 years. The gap between housing price and purchasing power reveals the contradiction in "inflated growth."

Văn Đức Phú, deputy director of the Northern Investment Promotion and Information Service Center under the Foreign Investment Department of Vietnam's Ministry of Finance, argues that "inflated growth" reflects the unstableness of Vietnam's GDP growth, characterized by a discord between economic expansion and real economic support.

A construction site in Vietnam

While Vietnam's GDP grew by 8.02% in 2025, the national electricity output for commercial use increased by only 4.9%. The imbalance between energy consumption and economic growth points to Vietnam's overreliance on loose monetary policies and public investment, rather than on improvements in endogenous production efficiency.

The Chinese media’s observations on Vietnam's real estate market are "more caution than bandwagoning." Having experienced the Evergrande property crisis, Chinese society remains highly sensitive to soaring housing prices or excessive credit inflow.

The hitting articles like "Vietnam's Property Market Is Out of Control" show the Chinese concern that Vietnam could repeat a past mistake. While such caution makes some sense, it fails to fully consider Vietnam's national conditions. It would be naive to conclude that the Vietnamese government has "lost control" of the property market.

A finished property project in Vietnam

The real-estate boom in Vietnam is the result of its economic growth model, policy orientation, and developmental stage. Only when economic growth improves production efficiency and increases residents' income, can real the real estate market and the broader economy achieve sustainable development.

Source: Mekong News Network, YICC; Trans-editing by Wang Shixue