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The Real Estate Market: A First-Class Flight with No Economy Seats

7 August, 2025

On August 6, the National Assembly Forum on Supervision, themed “Shaping Development,” took place in Hanoi. After the opening session, the delegates focused on the first discussion session, “The National Assembly’s supervision contributes to the country’s socio-economic development.” Vice President of the National Assembly, Vu Hong Thanh, chaired the discussion.

Vice President of the National Assembly, Vu Hong Thanh, chaired the first discussion session on the theme: “The National Assembly’s supervision contributes to the country’s socio-economic development.” Photo: NA

Supervising at the table, no need to go anywhere

Dr. Tran Du Lich, National Assembly Deputy of the XIIIth term and former Vice Chairman of the HCMC Delegation, shared that through his research, he found that a developmental state is one that undertakes profound reforms in national governance orientation. The state not only regulates and manages but also proactively leads and creates favorable conditions for socio-economic development through strategies, programs, institutions, and supporting tools.

The policies enacted by the National Assembly in the form of laws and resolutions encompass all aspects of the developmental state’s essence. However, it is crucial to emphasize certain aspects to ensure the policies’ practical implementation.

Mr. Tran Du Lich suggested that the National Assembly should supervise “at the table, with no need to go anywhere.” This approach only requires organizing, categorizing, and analyzing documents to unblock five types of markets: goods, finance, real estate, labor, and science and technology. According to him, these five markets are constrained by overlapping regulations. Legal firms can be hired, and AI technology and other supporting tools can be utilized to review and identify areas where the state intervenes too much or where there are loopholes.

Dr. Tran Du Lich suggested focusing on implementing Resolution 198 of the National Assembly at the local level to bring the “four pillars” into effective reality. Photo: NA

“This is an on-site supervision method with very low costs but high efficiency,” said Mr. Lich.

Regarding on-site supervision, Mr. Lich used the example of supervising social housing. He pointed out that the urbanization process often turns agricultural land into wasteland, as houses are built but remain unoccupied, leading to wastefulness. Especially in the current real estate market, there is a lack of affordable housing for middle-income and low-income earners.

“The products in the real estate market nowadays resemble an airplane with only business and first-class seats, lacking economy seats. We have allowed land prices and land speculation to drive up prices beyond the economy’s and people’s endurance. This is a significant issue in management for a developmental state,” said Mr. Lich.

Finally, Mr. Lich recommended implementing Resolution 198 of the National Assembly at the local level to identify what is needed to make the “four pillars” most effective and efficient.

Absolutely Wonderful

Mr. Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of the HCMC Real Estate Association, described the National Assembly’s supervision activities, especially thematic supervision, including supervision of the real estate market and social housing, as “absolutely wonderful.”

According to Mr. Chau, through supervision, the National Assembly can assess whether laws are in line with reality and, more importantly, whether law enforcement is accurate and effective. This is significant as General Secretary To Lam recently affirmed that by 2025, fundamental solutions must be found for all obstacles and difficulties related to institutions and laws.

Mr. Chau affirmed that the laws and resolutions enacted by the National Assembly since the end of 2021 have shown positive changes. The assembly is even willing to amend newly issued laws to ensure consistency and uniformity, reflecting a very receptive and timely spirit.

Mr. Le Hoang Chau evaluated the National Assembly’s supervision work as absolutely wonderful. Photo: NA

“Based on the National Assembly’s supervision results on the real estate market and social housing, the assembly issued Resolution 161, a fantastic directive for the Government, ministries, sectors, and localities to implement. Also, for the first time, thanks to that supervision team, we were able to compile a comprehensive statistic. According to the report, HCMC (the former city) had 220 stalled projects, but the actual number turned out to be 405. The Government also identified 2,981 stalled projects nationwide, involving more than 70,000 billion VND and tens of thousands of hectares of land,” said Mr. Chau.

Following the supervision, the National Assembly issued Resolution 170, the first thematic resolution addressing 64 stalled projects in Danang, Khanh Hoa, and HCMC with specific mechanisms. After requests to expand the scope to handle similar projects, the National Assembly, at the 9th session, issued a resolution on land-related policies to resolve difficulties.

Regarding Resolution 171 on piloting social housing and commercial housing projects using non-residential land and Resolution 2011 on the mechanism for handling the 20% land fund for commercial housing projects to build social housing, Mr. Chau said: “We think they are fantastic. The common feature of these resolutions is that they can be put into practice. Therefore, we hope that the National Assembly will continue its thematic supervision and supreme supervision to achieve this.”

Sharing Mr. Lich’s view, Mr. Chau pointed out that the real estate market currently lacks product supply, causing prices to rise, especially affordable housing for middle-income and low-income earners. He hoped for policies to address affordable housing (both social and commercial) and for everyone buying a house for the first time to have access to long-term credit with reasonable and stable interest rates.

Concerns about the effectiveness of supervision

Also, through the process of supervising the implementation of policies and laws on managing the real estate market and developing social housing, NA Deputy Phan Duc Hieu, a permanent member of the Committee for Economic and Financial Affairs, stated that the Law on Supervision only generally provides that “supreme supervision is the National Assembly’s monitoring, examining, and evaluating the activities of supervised agencies, organizations, and individuals in complying with the Constitution, laws, and resolutions of the National Assembly and handling them within its competence or requesting competent agencies to handle them.”

Along with that, the Law also stipulates and requires the Resolution on thematic supervision to include specific contents. Therefore, it is not entirely clear about the level, nature, and content of the evaluation in the Supervision Report and the Resolution on supervision. Supervision cannot make clear conclusions like auditing, inspection, or examination.

As a result, many supervision results, especially regarding difficulties and problems, are often described in general terms about the difficulties and obstacles in law enforcement, lacking quantification or being based on specific cases that the supervision team receives during the supervision process, without ensuring universality. Especially identifying the causes, violations, and responsibilities of organizations and individuals is very challenging.

From there, Mr. Hieu suggested adding provisions to clearly define the goals and content of supervision, including evaluating the impacts of laws, policies, or programs related to the content of supervision.

CHAN LUAN