VietNamNet Bridge – Machines, equipment, goods, real estate have all been advertised for sale by commercial banks to claim back their lent money. However, this proves to be a hard job.

The finance reports of many commercial banks showed the sharp increases of the bad debts. The fifth-group bad debt (the worst – irrecoverable debt) of Vietcombank has increased by 934 billion dong if compared with the end of 2011. Vietinbank’s increased by 1666 billion dong, Techcombank’s 385 billion dong. Therefore, banks have to sell mortgaged assets as the last resort.

However, it is very difficult to sell mortgaged assets at this moment. When reporters, who introduced themselves as bank officers, came to a real estate trading floor to advertise a house for sale, they were told that they would be better to accept the sale prices lower than the market prices, if they wanted to sell the house quickly.

“Too many properties have been put on sale in recent days. Therefore, you’d better to sell it cheaply. If your house is valued at 3 billion dong, you’d better demand 2.5 billion dong, or 17 percent lower,” an officer at the trading floor said.

The officer went on to say that while the number of clients cosigning houses at the trade center increases rapidly, the number of successful transactions is very modest. The best sellers are the ones with low values of between hundreds of millions of dong and 3-4 billion dong which are sold at 10-20 percent lower than the market prices.

The owner of a street-front house on Ly Thuong Kiet Street with an area of 180 square meters, who needs money urgently to pay debts, is offering to sell the house worth tens of billions of dong at the price which, according to the officer, is 3 billion dong lower than the market price. However, no buyer has been found.

Pham Thanh Hung, President of The Ky (Century) Joint Stock Company, has confirmed that a lot of clients have been trying to sell the mortgaged assets through the company’s trading floor. It is estimated that 100 new offers get available on the trading floor a month. However, only several transactions succeed a month, while the sale prices are much lower than the sellers’ expectations.

Hung said that at the time when the properties were mortgaged, the properties were very valuable. However, they have depreciated recently in the gloomy real estate market.

Especially, the real estate in the suburbs is getting surprisingly cheaper with the prices in Ba Vi, Ha Tay, Hoa Binh, Long An and Cu Chi districts decreasing by 50-60 percent at least. It is easier to sell the houses and land in big cities, but only at the prices lower by 10-15 percent than the offered prices.

Also according to Hung, it is very difficult to sell mortgaged assets, because the two sides cannot agree on the sale prices. The owners of the assets do not want to sell cheaply, while banks just want to sell the assets to get money back.

Especially, buyers don’t really want to buy the mortgaged assets, because they fear the possible legal troubles.

Ngo Hung Minh, Director of the Property Auction Center from the Hanoi Justice Department, has admitted that the center has not sold any immovable asset so far. Only some movable assets with the small value of 1-2 billion dong, such as ships, machines and equipment, have been sold.

“The land plots with an area of 5000-7000 square meters in Hanoi have not been sold after 5-6 auctions,” Minh said

Tien Phong