“Legislature Seeks to Temper the Real Estate Market, Avoiding a ‘Hot’ or ‘Frozen’ Scenario”

The National Assembly passes Resolution 161/2024/QH15 on continuing to improve the effectiveness of policies and laws related to the management of the real estate market and social housing development.

Prevent the real estate market from overheating or freezing.

According to the Resolution, in 2023-2024, the Government submitted to the National Assembly for consideration and approval several important draft laws directly related to the management of the real estate market and social housing development, including the Law on Real Estate Trading in 2023, the Law on Housing in 2023, the Law on Bidding in 2023, and the Land Law in 2024.

The Government, ministries, and sectors have promptly issued documents detailing these laws, while local authorities are urgently completing guiding documents within their competence. At the same time, the National Assembly and the Government are considering, amending, and supplementing many other related laws on planning, urban and rural planning, investment, fire prevention and fighting, geology and minerals, and notarization.

Many problems, limitations, difficulties, and obstacles have been identified, and many recommendations have been studied and adopted in the new legal documents that have been issued or are expected to be issued in the future.

Synchronized solutions are needed to overcome obstacles in real estate market management

In this context, the National Assembly requests the Government, the Prime Minister, and relevant agencies to continue reviewing the problems and limitations of policies and laws in managing the real estate market and developing social housing that have been identified and adjusted in the laws, detailed guiding documents, and implementation.

The National Assembly also requests the Government to propose synchronous and specific solutions to overcome the obstacles and limitations in managing the real estate market and developing social housing mentioned in Report No. 681/BC-ĐGS of the Supervisory Delegation, aiming towards a safe, healthy, and sustainable real estate market.

It also aims to diversify real estate products, balance supply and demand, increase the supply of real estate suitable for the income of the majority of the people, ensure the right to housing for the people, and ensure social welfare.

Creating a safe legal corridor for business investment and production activities

The National Assembly assigns the Government to immediately perform the following tasks and solutions:

– For newly issued laws related to real estate market management and social housing development, such as the Law on Real Estate Trading in 2023, the Law on Housing in 2023, the Law on Bidding in 2023, and the Land Law in 2024, the following tasks and solutions should be implemented:

Instruct ministries, ministerial-level agencies, and localities to complete the issuance of documents detailing and guiding the implementation within their assigned competence.

Continue reviewing and completing documents detailing and guiding the implementation to ensure the overcoming of problems and limitations in the 2015-2023 period and any difficulties arising in the process of deploying new regulations.

This will create a safe, sufficient, convenient, stable, and feasible legal corridor for business investment and production activities and people’s lives, especially transitional provisions, ensuring fair and public access to land and other resources, and efficient use of these resources.

Focus on guiding and organizing the implementation of financial and land-related laws, paying attention to land pricing, building and adjusting land price frames, and other related policies.

This will help maintain a reasonable level of land-related costs as input costs for the economy, ensuring a balance of interests between the State, land users, and investors in the spirit of Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW dated June 16, 2022, of the 5th Plenum of the 13th Party Central Committee on continuing to renew and perfect the regime.

Policies and improve the efficiency of land management and use, creating a driving force for the country to become a developed country with high income;

– Urgently issue full documents detailing and effectively organize the implementation of laws and resolutions related to real estate market management and social housing development after being approved by the National Assembly at the 8th Session, such as the Law on Urban and Rural Planning, the Law on Geology and Minerals, the Law on Fire Prevention and Fighting and Rescue, the Law on Notarization (amended), the Law on Cultural Heritage (amended), the Law on Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the Law on Planning, the Law on Investment, the Law on Investment in the Form of Public-Private Partnership, and the Law on Bidding.

The National Assembly’s Resolution on piloting the implementation of commercial housing projects through agreements on the transfer of land use rights or the right to lease land and the Resolution on mechanisms and policies to remove difficulties and obstacles for projects and land in the conclusions of inspection, examination, and judgments in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang City, and Khanh Hoa Province;

– For the draft laws submitted to the National Assembly at the 8th and 9th Sessions related to real estate market management and social housing development, such as the Law on Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the Law on Standards and Technical Regulations and the Law on Urban Development Management: It is necessary to study and propose solutions to overcome difficulties and obstacles in practice based on an objective assessment of the implementation of legal provisions over the periods.

Distinguish clearly between the causes of obstacles and difficulties arising from the provisions of the Law, guiding documents, or from the organization of implementation, in order to propose appropriate and feasible solutions.

Resolutely handle real estate projects with difficulties

– Have a suitable solution to resolutely handle real estate projects with difficulties and legal entanglements, stagnation due to prolonged implementation, and changes in the law over the periods.

This should be based on a comprehensive consideration of objective practical factors and specific historical circumstances, fully evaluating interests, costs, and the feasibility of the solution to ensure the legitimate rights and interests of the State, the people, and businesses, for the common good, and to release resources for the real estate market, creating a driving force for socio-economic development.

Do not “criminalize” economic and civil relations; clarify the content of “not legalizing violations.”

Resolutely handle projects within the scope of handling according to competence or those that have been decentralized, delegated, or authorized to the Government, ministries, sectors, and localities.

Continue reviewing other projects with legal difficulties and minimizing the impact of the review on normal and continuous business operations and the legitimate interests of businesses and people.

Classify and identify the causes and responsibilities and propose appropriate mechanisms to report to competent authorities;

– Have specific solutions and guide ministries, sectors, and localities to remove obstacles related to land management and use in the process of equitizing state-owned enterprises and divesting state capital from enterprises.

Provide mechanisms and policies to handle cases where the land use plan after the equitization of state-owned enterprises and divestment of state capital from enterprises is no longer suitable for the planning.

Propose specific solutions to remove obstacles in the implementation of signed build-transfer contracts, completing them by 2025;

Effectively deploy housing support programs

– Continue to effectively deploy housing support programs under the national target program and public investment program on housing.

Implement specific solutions to effectively deploy the Project “Investing in building at least 1 million social housing apartments for low-income people and industrial park workers in the period of 2021-2030” to ensure progress, quality, and suitability to the needs, working and living conditions of the beneficiaries.

Review the implementation of mechanisms and policies to support housing for people with revolutionary achievements and poor and near-poor households to actively and effectively deploy.

Propose practical solutions to renovate old and degraded apartment buildings that do not ensure the safety and living conditions of the people.

Review construction projects and works for resettlement, ensuring synchronous technical and social infrastructure, meeting the living conditions of the people at the resettlement area, and proposing suitable solutions to soon overcome the situation of slow putting into use, avoiding waste;

Complete regulations on the stock and bond markets

– Continue to study and complete regulations on the stock market and the corporate bond market, overcoming the limitations that have been revealed, creating a basis for the sustainable development of the capital market, and gradually enhancing the role of the capital market in providing medium and long-term capital for the economy.

Closely monitor the issuance of bonds and the performance of obligations when corporate bonds of real estate businesses mature;

Improve the effectiveness of real estate exchanges

– Improve the database and information system on housing and the real estate market, the national land information system, the national information system and database on planning, the information system and database on urban and rural planning connected with the population database and other related information systems.

This will meet the requirements of publicity, transparency, fullness, and regular updating of real estate market information.

Have specific mechanisms to improve the effectiveness of real estate exchanges to make them truly effective tools to enhance the transparency of the real estate market.

Expedite the construction and synchronized and unified use of the social housing database and beneficiary management tool to facilitate the review and management of beneficiaries of social housing purchase, rent, and rent-purchase, thereby speeding up the approval process and limiting policy exploitation;

– Continue to actively deploy social housing lending, removing difficulties and obstacles to effectively implement the VND 120,000 billion credit package under Resolution No. 33/NQ-CP dated March 11, 2023, of the Government.

Encourage commercial banks to continue to reduce costs to strive to reduce lending interest rates for investors and buyers of social housing and worker housing projects.

The Resolution also assigns the Government to direct ministries, sectors, and localities to improve the effectiveness of propaganda, dissemination, guidance, and training on policies and laws in the field of real estate market management and social housing development, especially for newly issued legal documents.

There should be appropriate forms of propaganda and dissemination suitable for overseas Vietnamese.

Proactively review, amend, supplement, and promulgate new legal documents within their competence or propose to competent authorities to complete regulations related to land, investment, planning, construction, and real estate business to ensure uniformity, synchronization, and interconnection, and convenience in procedures and processes.

Proactively monitor the situation and real estate market developments, strengthen research, analysis, and forecasting to promptly take measures to regulate and improve the market health, respecting market laws and ensuring sustainable development goals, preventing the market from overheating or freezing, negatively affecting the general development of the economy, and causing social consequences;

Prevent land price speculation

Take measures to diversify real estate products, balance supply and demand, increase the supply of real estate suitable for the income of the majority of the people, meet housing needs, and ensure social welfare.

Have fundamental and long-term solutions to bring real estate prices back to their intrinsic value and prevent manipulation and the use of land auction sessions to create price speculation;

Improve the quality of planning formulation, appraisal, approval, and adjustment, ensuring the consistency and unity between plans, ensuring the orientation of national, regional, provincial, urban, and rural plans.

Improve the quality of building urban development programs, housing development programs, the quality of appraisal, approval, and management of real estate investment projects to ensure a balance of interests between the State, the people, and businesses, and ensure the orientation of housing development in harmony with social and technical infrastructure, meeting the needs of the majority of the people;

Pay attention to completing mechanisms and policies on housing to realize the goal of people having housing suitable for their work and income, synchronously implementing salary reform policies;

Focus on developing social rental housing in urban areas

The Resolution requests focusing on developing social rental housing in urban areas with public investment capital.

Have strong enough incentive and encouragement policies to attract domestic and foreign social resources to invest in building social housing and renovating and rebuilding old apartment buildings, works that have expired, and urban renovation.

Continue to study and propose mechanisms and policies to promote the development of social housing, such as studying the formation of a social housing development fund or a suitable financial institution model to develop social housing, and studying the establishment or operation mechanism of a state-owned enterprise specializing in social housing investment development…

in accordance with the provisions of law, ensuring the unity and synchronization of the legal system.

Arrange the state budget capital to implement policies to support the purchase, rent, and rent-purchase of social housing.

Include social housing development targets in the socio-economic development programs and plans for 5 years and annually of localities.

Social housing development targets need to be studied, evaluated, and built on scientific and practical bases, suitable to the needs and development orientation of the country, regions, and localities in each period, while also determining to complete the set targets.

Prioritize the arrangement of land funds for social housing construction suitable for the housing development programs and plans and land use planning of localities in each period.

When making, appraising, and approving related planning, it is necessary to clearly determine the area of land for social housing construction according to the provisions of law;

Review mechanisms and policies to ensure access to resources for real estate project implementation; create favorable conditions for lending to legally-compliant and efficient real estate projects that have completed procedures and started construction to contribute to the market supply;

Soon study and propose higher tax rates for those who own large land and housing areas

The Resolution requests to soon study and propose to amend, supplement, and promulgate new laws on taxes, with regulations on higher tax rates for those who use large land areas, own many houses, delay land use, or leave land fallow to ensure synchronization with the new contents in the Land Law.

This will improve the efficiency of land management and use, realize the goal of redistributing income, and mobilize reasonable and stable revenue for the state budget, based on international experience and suitability to Vietnam’s socio-economic conditions;

Build and complete the national asset registration database with interconnection, sharing, and integration between registration systems in specialized fields, ensuring publicity, transparency, and easy access to information about the legal status of assets;

Fully perform the responsibility of guidance and handling in the process of organizing the implementation of the law, minimizing legal risks and shortening the time for project implementation.

Implement the principle that if there is a problem within the competence of any agency, that agency must handle it.

Overcome the situation where ministries and sectors guide and answer vaguely and generally, without specifics.

In case there are different understandings in the implementation of the law, it is necessary to promptly propose to the competent authority for interpretation of the law as prescribed.

Overcome the situation of avoiding, pushing, and shirking responsibilities in handling work in agencies and units, not prolonging the time and accumulating work;

Pay attention to organizing dialogues with businesses and people, promptly removing difficulties and obstacles arising in the process of organizing the implementation.

Continue to promote the reform of the regime of public duties, administrative procedures, and the building of e-government and digital government, cutting unnecessary business conditions and administrative procedures, shifting from process management to standard and norm management, creating a transparent, equitable, and favorable business and investment environment, and promoting decentralization and delegation to localities;

Tighten discipline, promote the sense of responsibility of the heads, and improve the effectiveness of inspection and examination to promptly detect weaknesses, obstacles, and limitations in the implementation of policies and laws on real estate market management and social housing development.

Focus on inspecting and examining the quality of social housing, the appraisal of beneficiaries of social housing policies.

Strictly handle cases where land has been allocated or leased by the State but has not been used or has been used inefficiently or for the wrong purpose, or in violation of the law, where investors are weak and incapable of completing projects, and where information is provided inaccurately, negatively affecting the financial and credit markets and the real estate market…

Nhat Quang