Nearly 90% of newly launched homes in HCMC are high-end products – VnExpress

A report from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction shows that by the end of May, the city had 20 commercial housing projects eligible to raise capital for off-plan housing, providing about 16,328 units with a total floor area of over 1.63 million square meters.

Of these, the high-end segment accounts for 14,637 units, equivalent to nearly 90% of the total supply. The mid-end segment has 1,691 units, while no new projects were recorded in the affordable housing segment.

Currently, HCMC has 96 ongoing housing projects with a scale of over 95,400 units, including about 87,200 apartments and over 8,100 low-rise houses. During the same period, the city approved investment policies and selected investors for 11 housing and urban area projects with a total area of over 434 hectares and an investment capital of about 118,786 billion VND. Most of the ongoing and upcoming projects are positioned in the mid-end and high-end segments.

These developments show that the HCMC real estate market is recovering in terms of supply, but the product structure remains imbalanced. Most new projects are concentrated in the mid-end and high-end groups, while the segment meeting the actual housing needs of the majority of people is becoming increasingly scarce.

Real estate in the eastern area of HCMC, April 2026. Photo: Quynh Tran

A similar trend was also recorded by research firms such as Savills, CBRE, and JLL Vietnam. Most reports from these entities indicate that 80-90% of the new launch supply in HCMC in the first half of this year was primarily high-end housing, with an average price of over 75 million VND per square meter. Even in newly merged markets like the former Binh Duong, the current average apartment price is from 56 million VND per square meter, falling into the mid-to-high-end category.

Ms. Cao Thi Thanh Huong, Deputy Director of Research and Consulting at Savills HCMC, stated that the affordable segment continues to be scarce, as its proportion of new supply is currently only about 12-15%. This figure is forecast to drop to 5% in the coming years.

The Vietnam Association of Realtors (VARS) also noted an increasingly clear premiumization trend in the real estate market in major cities. In Hanoi and HCMC, about 85% of the apartment supply launched since last year is high-end housing, priced at over 80 million VND per square meter, with almost no affordable products under 35 million VND per square meter remaining.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA), since 2021, the affordable housing segment has almost disappeared from the city’s market. Instead, apartments priced under 70 million VND per square meter are gradually being considered the affordable housing group. However, this price range is evaluated as far exceeding the income and ownership capacity of the vast majority of workers.

According to HoREA, continuously rising land prices, site clearance costs, capital costs, and land-related financial obligations have made developing low-cost housing increasingly difficult. Therefore, many businesses focus on the mid-end and high-end segments to ensure investment efficiency.

While high-priced supply continues to increase, market demand still primarily comes from the group of actual homebuyers with average financial capabilities. This forces many people to extend their savings period or shift their demand to suburban areas and neighboring localities.

In the context where low-cost commercial housing has almost disappeared, social housing is expected to become an alternative supply, meeting the settlement needs of workers and low-to-middle-income groups. However, the current supply scale is still quite modest compared to the city’s actual needs.

In the first half of this year, HCMC only completed and put into use one social housing project with 580 apartments. The city currently has 14 projects under construction with a total scale of about 11,600 units. Additionally, 7 other projects with about 8,835 units have completed construction licensing procedures or feasibility study report appraisals, expected to commence in July.

Social housing supply is expected to continue improving in the coming time as many projects enter the implementation phase. Nevertheless, experts believe that to resolve the supply-demand mismatch, HCMC still needs more mechanisms to promote the development of reasonably priced commercial housing alongside expanding the social housing fund.

Phuong Uyen