The latest report from MOC’s House and Real Estate Market Management Agency showed that by February 20, the total inventory value had decreased to VND29.573 trillion, a decrease of VND98.975 trillion compared with the first quarter of 2013, or 76.99 percent.

The inventory value means a decrease of VND21.316 trillion compared with December 2015 (down by 41.89 percent), VND1.450 trillion compared with December 2016 (4.67 percent) and VND575 billion compared with January 2017.

In Hanoi, the inventory value had decreased to VND5.538 trillion by February 20, down by VND1.208 trillion, or 17.91 percent compared with December 2015. 

This represented the decrease of VND52 billion compared with December 2016 (0.93 percent) and VND27 billion compared with January 20, 2017.

In HCMC, the inventory value had decreased to VND5.518 trillion by February 20, down by VND283 billion compared with December 2016.

Inventory includes mostly land belonging to projects far from the central area where the infrastructure remains poor. 

In Hanoi, the inventory value had decreased to VND5.538 trillion by February 20, down by VND1.208 trillion, or 17.91 percent compared with December 2015.

The number of successful transactions in the first two months of the year was not high because of the long Tet holiday and the Vietnamese habit of not making transactions on the first days of the year.

Nguyen Van Duc, deputy chair of the HCMC Real Estate Association, who was doubtful about the statistics, commented that it was necessary to consider the decreases in quantity and value.

Duc stressed that the sale of apartments under construction must not be taken into account, because these are ‘unfinished products’, not ‘inventories’. 

If investors can sell the apartments of the projects when they finish building the foundation, or five to seven stories, this must be considered sale of ‘unfinished products’, and therefore, must not be ‘inventory’. 

In other cases, if investors buy and sell 100 products among each other, the transactions cannot help reduce the inventory.

“A report may show that 3,000 inventory products were sold in the last quarter. However, if you consider it carefully, you may discover that there were only 300 while the remaining 2,500 were unfinished products,” he said.

Duc agrees with some real estate experts that the major action in the real estate market last year was mergers and acquisition (the number of products remained unchanged). 

He said that Vietnam’s statistics do not have high accuracy. The reported figure about the people’s average housing area of 20 square meters per head is an example. 

According to Duc, many workers now have to live in poor conditions with just two to three square meters per head.

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