The trend of building tube houses in rural areas
A survey conducted by PV shows that many residents in Thanh Cao, Thanh Oai, Hanoi are concerned about the increasing difficulty of accessing land in their hometown, especially for families with children who are reaching marriageable age.
Land prices in some areas have soared to hundreds of millions of VND per square meter, while just a few years ago, these plots were left vacant and almost unused. Ms. Huong, a resident of Thanh Cao, recalled, “A decade ago, the land was deserted and no one used it. Now, land in the outskirts is heating up, and vacant land is becoming scarce. In the past, we built garden houses because we had spacious land, but now, we can only afford to build tube houses.”
Land successfully auctioned off in Thanh Oai, Hanoi. Photo: Tien Anh
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During the recent land auction, local residents also boldly participated in the bidding process, but those who successfully won the bids were quite rare.
Mr. Phuc, a 60-year-old local, shared that villagers could only bid up to 60-70 million VND per square meter before having to give up, as they couldn’t keep up with investors. “It’s very challenging to purchase land when the price is above 100 million VND per square meter. Now, the price of one square meter of land is equivalent to one and a half gold taels. Even if you bring thirty taels, you can only buy about 20 square meters, which is not even half a plot of land,” Mr. Phuc said.
In the latest land auction, there were 68 plots of land up for bidding in Thanh Cao, but a staggering 7,000 applications were received. Each application incurred a fee of 500,000 VND, and many families purchased two applications to increase their chances.
Ms. Thuy, a resident of Thanh Oai, shared that many households in the area now have their own companies, leading to an increased demand for land. Several families even registered to bid for 3-4 plots of land simultaneously. Fortunately, her neighbors successfully won the bid for two plots of land, each measuring 80 square meters and conveniently located along the main road.
“This year is truly the ‘year of queuing,’ first for gold and now for land. People feel more secure investing their money in gold and land,” Ms. Thuy remarked.
In reality, the locals consider the auctioned land as “prime land” due to its superb location adjacent to a major road. A decade ago, beautiful plots of land in the village, measuring over 100 square meters, were priced at only 1 billion VND.
Young people worry about the challenges of buying land to build homes
The high auction-winning prices in this area will push up land prices in neighboring areas, creating a new benchmark. Even within the locality, residents are raising their asking prices in line with the auction results.
Thu Hanh, a 28-year-old resident of Thanh Cao, expressed her surprise at the high land prices, saying, “I never expected the prices to be so high. Not only in the future, but even for young people like me, it will be very difficult to buy land.”
“Nowadays, there are many investors from other places flocking to ‘hunt’ for land, and villagers will face challenges in competing in the bidding process. In rural areas, with a monthly income of 10 million VND, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with bidding prices exceeding 100 million VND per square meter,” Thu Hanh added.
Concerns are not limited to local residents, as many people on real estate forums have also expressed their worries. A user named Vu Lan pointed out that while investors from other places often win the auctions, the land then lies unused, whereas those with a genuine need for housing are left without land. Vu Lan, along with many other forum users, suggested that there should be regulations requiring successful bidders to utilize the land within a specified timeframe, preventing it from being left vacant and overgrown with grass, which is a waste of resources.
Mr. Nguyen Van Dinh, a real estate legal expert, observed that a common phenomenon in recent times is that when the state organizes land auctions, the participants and winners are mostly not local residents. “For example, in the auction of 68 plots of land in Thanh Oai, only two local residents won the bids, while the rest were investors from other places,” he illustrated.
According to Mr. Dinh, the tool of land auctions has become distorted and has turned into a game for investors who do not have actual housing needs but instead aim to quickly transfer the land ownership and make a profit. As a result, land auctions have deviated from their initial goal of addressing the housing needs of local residents and have primarily served the investment, speculative, and land-hoarding demands.
Auction winners often include “land brokers” who use various tactics to drive up prices, contributing to land fever. “The phenomenon of land speculation and hoarding, fueled by the mindset of ‘nothing gets richer than land trading,’ is the reason behind soaring housing and land prices, pushing the dream of homeownership further away for workers,” the expert worriedly stated.
Mr. Dinh argued that while residents’ investment needs are legitimate to some extent, when this trend becomes excessive and turns into speculation and hoarding, it distorts the market, causes land wastage, and leads to a waste of resources.
Tien Anh
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