Postponing weddings due to skyrocketing house and gold prices

Mr. Quach Manh Cuong's (from Dak Lak ) plan to hold a wedding at the end of 2024 cannot be realized because the price of gold rings has increased to a record level.

Gold and house prices are soaring, causing many people to postpone their weddings. (Illustration photo)

Mr. Cuong said that he and his wife have been in love for 3 years, planning to get married at the end of this year and have planned for a long time. He tried to save a part of his monthly income for the wedding. However, things did not go as planned when the bride's family asked for a gold bar as a dowry. The amount of money Mr. Cuong saved was only enough for the wedding party and house renovation. "The amount of more than 80 million VND to buy a gold bar as a dowry was beyond my financial capacity, which was also the main reason why our wedding could not take place," Mr. Cuong said.

According to Mr. Cuong, because he wanted the wedding to be as perfect as possible, and also did not want the dowry issue to hinder his marriage. Therefore, he discussed with his girlfriend to postpone the wedding for a year, he would try to work to earn more money to buy gold.

Fortunately, Mr. Cuong's fiancee sympathized and promised to save money to buy gold so they could quickly organize the wedding next year.

“Our wedding was postponed because of the sudden increase in gold prices. Hopefully, the price of gold will go down in the near future so that my wife and I can achieve our goal,” said Mr. Cuong.

Similarly, Mr. Do Duy Van ( Nam Dinh ) also had to cancel his wedding plans because the price of gold "skyrocketed".

Mr. Van is currently working as a worker at a company in his hometown of Nam Dinh. His income of about 7 million VND a month is enough to cover his living expenses in his hometown. Although the standard of living in his hometown is not high, Mr. Van has managed to save some money by trying to spend wisely and scientifically .

To prepare for the wedding, Mr. Van has been trying to work overtime and find more part-time jobs to increase his income. However, his wedding, which was scheduled to take place in November, did not go as planned because the price of gold continued to break records.

According to Van, his family was not very well off. Before the wedding, the savings were used to repair the house and build a wedding room. Near the wedding day, the bride's family suddenly made a request that, in addition to the dowry, the groom's family must give the bride a necklace worth at least 5 taels of gold at the wedding.

"With the current price of gold, this wedding gift for the bride costs more than 40 million VND, which is not a small amount of money for a farming family like mine," said Mr. Van.

Wishing for the wedding to go well as planned, Mr. Van asked his future wife's parents for permission to give a symbolic gift, saying that after the wedding he would earn money to give her a 5-tael gold necklace. However, the bride's family did not agree, insisting that the wedding would only be allowed if the groom's family agreed to give the requested dowry.

“Although my fiancée understood my situation, she could not decide on her own. Because the bride’s family’s demands were beyond my financial capacity, the two families could not find a common voice and the wedding had to be postponed ,” said Mr. Van.

According to Mr. Van, although the wedding has been postponed, he still regularly monitors gold prices. In recent days, when gold prices have continuously increased to record levels, even the price of gold rings at times exceeded the price of gold bars, he is worried about when he will be able to buy gold for his wife's wedding.

Not only the price of gold, Mr. Nguyen Minh Huong (from Phu Tho) also faced a dilemma when his girlfriend's family required a house in Hanoi before agreeing to the wedding.

Mr. Huong is working for a technology company with an income of about 15 million VND per month. This can be considered a not-too-low income, enough to cover his living expenses in Hanoi.

After many years of saving, Mr. Huong has saved more than 500 million VND, so he and his girlfriend decided to get married at the end of this year.

However, his girlfriend's family is from Hanoi, so when they heard that their daughter wanted to get married, her family required the groom's family to have a house in Hanoi before allowing the wedding, regardless of how big or small the house was.

“Previously, I thought that the savings of 500 million VND could help me get married and stabilize my finances for the first few years. However, when the girl's family asked me to buy a house, that amount of money became smaller than ever," Mr. Huong said, adding that although he tried to convince his girlfriend's parents to let the two of them rent a house for a few years and save up to buy a house together, they did not agree and kept their original point of view.

Not wanting his plan to be ruined, Mr. Huong tried to find out the house prices in Hanoi. At this time, he was shocked to see the real estate price matrix in Hanoi, whether in the segment of mini apartments, collective houses, ground-level houses or apartments, the price is up to several billion VND.

“Buying a house is impossible for me at this time, so my girlfriend and I have agreed to continue postponing the wedding. We will wait until we can convince the bride’s family or wait for real estate prices to drop before continuing our wedding plan,” said Mr. Huong.

According to experts, the recent sharp increase in the price of gold rings is due to the impact of world prices. Meanwhile, the world gold price is also affected by geopolitical conflicts, the US presidential election and the possibility of the Fed changing interest rates in a downward direction.

In addition, the demand for gold by Vietnamese people is very large because gold is considered as an asset for storage and savings. When gold bars are increasingly difficult to buy, many people seek gold rings, causing the points of sale to fall into a state of scarce supply.

At the same time, many people are still holding on to gold, waiting for the price to go up to sell. Meanwhile, the State Bank has not made any move to allow gold trading enterprises to import gold. Therefore, gold rings are increasingly sold less and less due to limited supply.

Meanwhile, a report from the Ministry of Construction said that recently, apartment prices in the third quarter in some areas increased locally by 35-40% compared to the previous quarter.

The Ministry of Construction emphasized that the affordable apartment segment (with a selling price of less than VND25 million/m2) has almost no transactions and products for sale. Mid-range apartments (with a price of about VND25 million/m2 to less than VND50 million/m2) still account for a high proportion of transactions and supply in the market. The remaining position is high-end and super high-end apartments (with a price of over VND50 million/m2).

In Hanoi, apartment prices continue to increase in both new and old projects, with new project prices increasing by about 4% - 6% quarterly and 22% - 25% annually.

Virtue

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/hoan-cuoi-vi-gia-nha-gia-vang-thi-nhau-tang-dung-dung-ar905375.html