'Tightening' real estate credit: Avoid equating home buyers with 'speculators and surfers'

TPO - Currently, most investors are cooperating with banks to deploy credit packages for home buyers. This is an important policy, both stimulating the market and helping people easily access housing, directly affecting liquidity and product absorption. Credit tightening needs to distinguish between speculation and legitimate accumulation needs to avoid negative impacts on the market.

Báo Tiền Phong•10/10/2025

Avoid confusing goals

Recently, the Ministry of Construction proposed a loan limit for commercial housing: no more than 50% of the contract value for a loan to buy a second home, and no more than 30% for a third home or more. This policy is expected to limit speculation and guide the market to operate more healthily.

According to the Vietnam Institute for Research and Evaluation of Real Estate Market (VARS IRE), this proposal should avoid equating the group of “speculators and surfers” with those who buy second or third homes for legitimate purposes, such as business exploitation or accumulation of assets for children. According to this institute, the group of investors who buy for rental exploitation or long-term accumulation has a positive impact, helping to increase liquidity and promote a more vibrant market.

“If a credit restriction policy is applied uniformly, without distinction of subjects, it is very likely to eliminate all positive market dynamics,” VARS IRE commented.

Credit tightening should not be applied universally.

Mr. Nguyen Van Dinh - Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Real Estate Brokers (VARS) - said that Vietnamese people have the habit of accumulating real estate for investment or buying for their children and grandchildren. “This is a legitimate need and should be encouraged. A person buying a house to rent or open a shop also contributes to meeting the housing demand in the market. If real demand is equated with speculation, demand will decrease and businesses will face difficulties,” Mr. Dinh said.

According to Mr. Dinh, tightening credit or imposing taxes should not be applied universally, but should target speculators through technical measures. Otherwise, the market will become unbalanced, reducing liquidity and affecting the competitiveness of businesses.

VARS IRE believes that the long-term solution to reduce housing prices is to develop affordable commercial housing. According to the second quarter report this year, luxury apartments account for more than 60% of the total supply, while affordable apartments are almost absent, only appearing in some social housing projects.

In large cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the affordable housing segment has “disappeared” for many years, causing the imbalance between supply and demand to push up prices. VARS IRE commented that “when demand exceeds supply, price increases are inevitable”, so increasing new supply is a fundamental solution instead of tightening credit across the board.

VARS IRE recommends that regulatory agencies should develop flexible and feasible policies, avoiding mechanical application of regulations of the social housing program that still has many problems. Regulatory solutions must achieve two goals: Control speculation without reducing legal demand and stabilize the market in the long term.

Should pay the right role of the market

Professor Dang Hung Vo - former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment - said that the most important thing now is to restore the proper role of the market in allocating resources and capital flows.

According to Mr. Vo, the market economy is the model that most respects the capitalization mechanism - that is, allows capital to operate flexibly, finding the place that brings the highest efficiency. "Do not set up regulations that hinder the capitalization process. Prohibiting capitalization is prohibiting the market, is anti-market," Mr. Vo emphasized.

Mr. Vo said that many current regulations still have the tendency of a subsidy mechanism, distorting market rules and hindering development.

“We are using a subsidy mindset to manage the market, which is completely harmful to economic growth. Vietnam often asks countries to recognize it as a market economy, but so far, most G7 countries have not recognized it because they see that we are operating with an old mindset, making decisions that go against market principles,” Mr. Vo analyzed.

Regarding housing prices, according to Mr. Vo, the root of the problem does not lie in tightening or loosening credit, but in supply policy. “The story of housing prices is the story of supply. If the supply in all segments, especially housing for low-income and middle-class people, is not increased, then housing prices will continue to increase. This is the State's policy responsibility," Mr. Vo said.

However, Mr. Vo also emphasized that in a market economy, enterprises are the ones who decide the direction of investment, not the State. “Whichever segment is profitable, enterprises will invest in it, that is the law of nature. The State cannot and should not intervene by restricting credit or prohibiting enterprises from investing in this or that field. Doing so goes against the market mechanism,” Professor Vo affirmed.

According to Mr. Vo, the role of the State is not to make decisions on behalf of businesses, but to create a transparent and equal framework so that all economic sectors can operate according to the inherent laws of the market.

"Once we have chosen the market economy model, we must truly trust and respect the market mechanism, instead of administrative intervention with a subsidy mindset," Mr. Vo added.