Vietnam’s GDP growth to keep driving southern industrial property market: report

The industrial and logistics market in Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Long An, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau will continue to grow in 2022-2023 thanks to Vietnam’s resilient economic expansion, according to Cushman and Wakefield.

The post-pandemic resilient growth rate, driven by Vietnam’s manufacturing and exports, is likely to help the market pick up in the remaining months of the year, the real estate service firm's CEO Trang Bui said a press briefing Friday on the regional market.

The country’s economy in the first nine months of this year expanded 8.83% from a year earlier, the fastest nine-month pace in the 2011-2022 period.

Industrial land supply in this Greater HCMC region increased significantly compared to last year, especially in quarters one and two of 2022, mainly due to delayed projects from last year's pandemic, she said.

The region’s cumulative supply has reached 27,780 hectares to date, with an occupancy rate of 88%. The emergence of new supply at locations further away from HCMC, such as Bau Bang Industrial Park and VSIP III, both in Binh Duong, has helped reduce the asking price of industrial land. The average rent in this third quarter is $148.4 per square meter for the whole lease term.

As for bigger cities in Vietnam like HCMC, Hanoi, and Danang, Trang predicted the coming year-end festival season would drive up warehouse needs due to peak online shopping demand.

For all property segments in HCMC like apartments, townhouses, offices, and retail, the entire market will continue to be resilient in the medium term, according to Cushman & Wakefield Vietnam’s latest report. The report also reviewed the whole market in the third quarter.

Apartments

The country’s credit control policies that took effect in the beginning of July have partly resulted in barriers to mobilizing capital from commercial banks, making it difficult for investors to deploy new apartment projects, the report said.

Therefore, the supply of new apartments in Q3 fell by 56% quarter-on-quarter, with about 4,100 units offered for sale. Among them, mid-end apartments accounted for 75%, affordable ones 16%, luxury units 7%, high-end 1%, and super luxury, 1%.

Townhouses

The new supply of townhouses recorded nearly 450 units offered for sale from six projects, doubling that in Q2 and four times higher than Q3 of 2021, according to the report. The total number of units sold was 270.

Thu Duc city on HCMC’s outskirts was the leading area in terms of new supply, at 86%, with notable projects including Soho Residence, Rivus, and Classia. HCMC’s western and southern areas accounted for the remaining 14%.

The average primary price was recorded at $12,300 per square meter of land, up 29.7% quarter-on-quarter and almost doubling against a year earlier.

“Developers are now taking advantage of sales events and sales galleries to attract customers and directly present attractive offers,” the firm noted.

Office segment

The office segment did not record new supply this Q3. The total cumulative supply of Grade A and B was still 1.43 million square meters of office space. However, the market witnessed a good absorption rate with 21,354 square meters already leased. In which, 58% of transactions were signed for office space in District 7. Office rent for the whole segment remained stable, with $59 per square meter per month for Grade A, and $34 for Grade B.

In the next three years, the HCMC office segment will receive a series of newly completed office projects in prime locations like The Nexus (in 2023), The Hallmark (2023), The Crest Tower B (2023), The Sun Tower (2024), The Pearl (2024), and IFC One Saigon (2024), according to the property service firm.

Retail

Total retail sales and services in this year’s January-September period reached $177 billion, up 21% from a year earlier. The number of international visitors was recorded at 1.87 million, 16.4 times higher than the same period last year. About 70% of these were from Asia.

Based on the indicators, Cushman & Wakefield is of the view that the city retail segment has recovered and returned to its pre-pandemic growth trajectory.

The firm noted that the construction speed for new retail supply in this segment is still quite low. From 2017 to 2019, HCMC saw an average of 80,000 square meters supplied to the market every year; but in the past four years, there has been no new supply recorded. However, future retail projects are on the rise, with around 140,000 square meters of floor space currently under construction.