Though they have complained about poor market performance, real estate firms still can arrange huge amounts of money to buy land plots in advantageous positions.

Hung Thinh Group has just bought a land plot of 1,000 hectares in Lam Dong province.

Prior to that, the realtor spent trillions of dong in 2019 to take over many projects in Binh Dinh, including a 1,000 hectare urban area.

Nam Long, which has 681 hectares of land, continues to buy land with an annual budget of VND2 trillion.

Though they have complained about poor market performance, real estate firms still can arrange huge amounts of money to buy land plots in advantageous positions.

The firm only eyes large land plots located in satellite provinces, or at gateways of the southern key economic zones.

A local newspaper reported that Danh Khoi Group is negotiating to buy the ‘golden land area’ in Da Nang City. It has just signed a contract on Phat Dat Real Estate on the wholesale purchase and development of a complex in Binh Duong province.

Meanwhile, An Gia, a tenderfoot in the stock market, announced at the annual shareholders’ meeting held in June a plan to enlarge its land fund. The management board of the company, believing that it is now the right time to buy more land, decided to budget VND3-5 trillion to buy land plots in 2020.

An Gia, which has a 30 ha land plot in Long An and another 30 ha in Binh Chanh district, HCM City, is still seeking new land plots to buy. HCM City remains its major market, but it has also begun eyeing land plots in neighboring localities, including Bien Hoa City in Dong Nai, Long An, Ba Ria – Vung Tau and Binh Duong.

VnExpress cited a Savills Vietnam’s report as showing that real estate M&A activities were very busy in the first months of 2020 and the number of deals will be higher in the future.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, CEO of Dai Phuc Land, confirmed that real estate firms are hurrying to buy as much land as possible.

“Realtors fear that if they are slow, they will miss the opportunities to own ‘golden land’ which determines the success of projects, and to buy land at reasonable prices.

“It is more and more difficult to buy land, because it is getting scarcer. Meanwhile, the site compensation costs have increased sharply, which reduces investors’ profits,” she explained.

While affirming that realtors with huge land funds would have advantages over others, Huong pointed out that only businesses with powerful financial capability can accumulate land.

“Huge amounts of money will be ‘buried’ in land plots, but businesses still don’t know when the land can bring profits,” she said.

Linh Ha 

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