Proposal to reduce social housing loan interest rate from 6.6% to 4.8%

Currently, the interest rate for loans to rent and buy social housing is at 6.6%/year. The new draft regulation proposes to reduce it to 5.4%/year, but the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association believes that this interest rate is still too high.

On October 10, the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) continued to provide comments on the draft Decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 100/2024/ND-CP on the development and management of social housing. One of the important contents that the Association is particularly interested in is the credit policy and preferential loan interest rates for buyers, renters of social housing as well as project investors.

According to HoREA, amending the preferential loan interest rate policy for purchasing and leasing social housing as stipulated in Decree 100/2024/ND-CP is very necessary.

According to Clause 4, Article 48 of Decree 100/2024/ND-CP, "social housing buyers and hire-purchasers" are subject to "loan interest rates equal to the lending interest rates for poor households as prescribed by the Prime Minister in each period". The lending interest rate for poor households is currently 6.6%/year, causing social housing buyers and hire-purchasers to have had to borrow at an interest rate of 6.6%/year since August 1, 2024. According to HoREA, this interest rate is "too high". Similarly, according to Decree 100, social housing project investors are subject to "loan interest rates equal to 120% of the lending interest rates for social housing buyers and hire-purchasers", so they must borrow at an interest rate of 7.92%/year, higher than the interest rate of Vietcombank , which is currently lending to social housing at an interest rate of only 5.9-6.1%/year.

The draft amendment to Decree 100 proposes to stipulate preferential loan interest rates for renting and buying social housing at 5.4%/year.

However, the Association believes that this interest rate is still high and recommends continuing to implement the preferential loan interest rate policy of 4.8%/year as in the period 2021-07/2024 and in "case it is necessary to change the loan interest rate", "relevant units shall submit to the Prime Minister for consideration and decision" to create a flexible mechanism to regulate the preferential loan interest rate policy for purchasing and leasing social housing depending on the resources of the state budget in each fiscal year.

The Association also recommended that the State Bank (SBV) – instead of the Social Policy Bank – be the agency in charge of proposing adjustments to annual preferential interest rates. The reason is that the SBV has a ministerial position and can coordinate more effectively with the Ministry of Construction in balancing credit resources and ensuring consistent policies between the monetary and social housing sectors.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/de-xuat-giam-lai-vay-nha-o-xa-hoi-tu-66-xuong-48-d409287.html