Foreigners Rushing to Buy Real Estate in Vietnam

Hundreds of millions of dollars are waiting to pour into Vietnam real estate market in most segments. The real estate market attracts a lot of foreign investors, mainly through M&A activities.

According to the newly announced report from Savills Vietnam, in quarter 2 of 2017, housing development projects received strong attention. China Fortune Land Development Group has bought shares in VinaCapital’s Lotus Dai Phuoc project for 65.3 million USD. Dai Phuoc Lotus is a residential area project with a total area of 198.5 million hectares in Dong Nai province, bordering Ho Chi Minh City.

In addition, VinaCapital’s Times Square project (Hanoi) worth 41 million USD is also transferred to Elite Capital Resources Limited.

Japanese investors are also active in the market. Nishi Nippon and Hankyu cooperate with Nam Long to build a 26 hectares Mizuki Park residential project in Binh Chanh district, Ho Chi Minh City with total investment capital of 351 million USD.

In addition, Aeon Mall – the famous Japanese retailer has officially co-operated with BIM Group to develop the second shopping center of Aeon in Hanoi with an area of 16.7 ha, the estimated investment capital is 200 million USD.

In the field of industrial real estate, Hemaraj Land & Development (Thailand) and Cienco 4 (Vietnam) have officially confirmed the joint venture to establish 1 billion USD industrial park on 3,200 hectares of land in Nghe An province.

In recent years, the real estate market of Vietnam has witnessed the strategic moves of investors, including mergers – acquisitions and development – cooperation. Some typical deals include Gaw Capital’s acquisition of a series of high-value commercial properties from Indochina Land, Gamuda Land’s acquisition of stake of local investors in the Celadon City project.

At the same time, the M&A market happened on a large scale in all different segments, such as the joint venture between Chau Tai Phuc and Suncity Group into the large resort and casino project in Nam Hoi An with total investment of up to 4 billion USD or the deal that Lotte acquired Diamond Plaza.

The market is expected to continue to be active in 2017 with a series of acquisitions and mergers.

According to JLL Vietnam, in the first half of 2017, Vietnam has attracted about 19.2 billion USD of foreign investment capital, increase by 54.8% over the same period last year. This shows that Vietnam is still one of the potential markets for investment in Southeast Asia.

There are hundreds of millions of dollars waiting to be poured into the domestic market in most segments, including housing, offices, retail, hotels and industrial parks, according to JLL. Investors come from different countries like Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the growth of investor groups from China.

Joint ventures are becoming more popular among foreign investors – with strong financial strength and experiences, they will work with local corporations – investors who holding land in the market and also has close relationships with local authorities.

The hotel segment has always attracted the attention in the recent time with a lot of foreign capital poured into Vietnam. Forecasting this trend will continue to grow, while other markets such as industrial park and education are also growing constantly. The affordable housing market is seen as attracting much investment capital, largely due to the rise of the middle class.

Lastly, according to Savills Vietnam, M&A will continue to be the form that the vast majority of investors will use to enter the Vietnamese market in order to realize their goals.