Hanoi and HCMC rank among Asia’s least affordable cities for homebuyers, surpassing Singapore in the gap between housing prices and average income, a report has shown.

The report by property consultancy CBRE analyzed the disparity between housing prices and per capita income in major Asian cities.

Hanoi’s average apartment price is US$2,600 per square meter, while the average annual income is $6,300, resulting in an income-to-housing price ratio of 2.4.

HCMC’s average apartment price is $2,800 per square, with an average annual income of $7,500, yielding a ratio of 2.7.

A higher ratio indicates
greater affordability, while a lower ratio suggests the opposite.

The two major cities in Vietnam rank only higher than Hong Kong, with a ratio of 1.7, and Seoul and Manila which have a ratio of 2.3.

“This shows that buying a home in Hanoi and HCMC is even more difficult than in Singapore,” CBRE said.
While Vietnam’s housing price is similar to that of other countries in Asia, average income is much lower, which explains the smaller ratios.

Kuala Lumpur’s average income, for example, quadruples that of Hanoi.
Other studies have pointed out the same challenge of purchasing housing in Vietnam.

A report by property listing platform Batdongsan ranks Hanoi and HCMC among the
least affordable housing markets in Southeast Asia.

A Hanoi resident would need 50 years of income to buy a house and 23 years to afford an apartment, it estimates.
By comparison, the International Monetary Fund considers housing affordable when it does not exceed 30 years of household income.

“In most developed countries, young professionals typically need 10 to 15 years to buy a home. But in Vietnam, it takes 23 to 25 years – nearly an entire working career,” according to Batdongsan.

Vietnam Association of Realtors (VARS) estimates that with current prices ranging from VND40–70 million (US$1,594-2,791) per square meter, a 60-square-meter apartment in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City costs between VND2.5–3.5 billion.

Source: Vnexpress

Local governments in mainland China are speeding up their purchases of idle land from developers, but more cities need to take part to expand the scale of the initiative and rescue the property market from its five-year slowdown, according to analysts.

Several cities in China’s southern Guangdong province last week unveiled plans to buy idle land totalling more than 35 billion yuan (US$4.8 billion) from developers via special bond issuances – the first such move since authorities announced the scheme to address the residential land glut in
October.

The plans involve more than 160 plots of land, measuring 6.8 million square metres, as of February 11, and the price works out to or 5,147 yuan per square metre, according to data compiled by think tank China Index Academy.
“The bulk purchase officially kicks off buying of idle and raw land through issuance of local government special bonds in 2025, and we expect more cities to join the ranks,” said Yan Yuejin, vice-president of Shanghai-based E-House China Real Estate Research Institute.

The initiative was expected to help equalise supply and demand in the land market as well as provide cash flow for developers, reducing their financial burdens and stabilising their operations, he added.

The land plots are being sold for less than developers paid for them. In the vast majority of cases, the purchase price is 80 per cent or less of what the developer paid, according to China Index Academy.

China’s property sector, which once accounted for a quarter of the economy, suffered a deep slide in sales and prices starting in late 2020, when Beijing’s “three red lines” policy limited developer borrowing, leading to construction halts and an unprecedented number of defaults.Later the Covid-19 pandemic further dampened sales.

Source: SCMP

Australia will ban foreign investors from buying existing homes in the country for two years, its government said on Sunday, in an effort to boost under-pressure housing supply.

“We’re banning foreign purchases of established dwellings from April 1, 2025, until March 31 2027,” treasurer Jim Chalmers said in a statement with housing minister Clare O’Neil. It added that a review would be undertaken on whether the ban would be extended.

Dissatisfaction with housing in Australia reached an all-time high last year and it is an issue that is expected to dominate a general election due by May.

O’Neil said in comments televised by the Australian Broadcasting Corp that the ban would likely free up around 1,800 properties per
year for local buyers.

“These initiatives are a small but important part of our already big and broad housing agenda which is focused on boosting supply and helping more people into homes,” the ministers’ statement said.

Housing is the largest contributor to the rising cost of living in Australia and is set to be a key issue at the upcoming election. A recent poll had the centre-left Labor government lagging its main conservative political opposition.

The government recently passed housing reforms including a shared equity scheme and tax incentives for developers, to ease cost pressures and achieve a target of building 1.2 million new homes by 2030.

Source: Reuters