The figure is well above 250 house transactions with foreign involvement in the country from 2008 to July 2015 when Vietnam adopted a pilot plan to sell houses to certain groups of foreigners and overseas Vietnamese.
HoREA said the number of overseas Vietnamese owning homes in the country has also edged up thanks to the revised housing law, which makes it easier for overseas Vietnamese to own homes and obtain land-use right certificates.
In addition to more money from foreign homebuyers, the property market has lured more bank loans, foreign direct investment (FDI) capital and incoming remittances.
A recent report of HoREA on the property market showed bank loans for the market alone grew some 18% last year, well above 15% in 2014.
HCMC, the biggest real estate market in Vietnam, saw credit for real estate projects amounting to VND140 trillion (US$6.2 billion) in 2015, accounting for 12.3% of total outstanding loans.
According to statistics of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and the Ministry of Construction, credit for the property market made up 23.5% of total outstanding loans in 2010, 11% in 2011, 14% in 2012 and 14.7% in 2013 and 15.2% in 2014.
Average credit growth in the real estate market stood at 14-15% per annum in the 2012-2014 period, and the percentage last year was the highest in five years.
New policies of the Government and the SBV supported the recovery of the real estate sector. Many banks joined hands with realty developers to fund their projects and support homebuyers, HoREA said in its report.
Incoming remittances in HCMC totaled US$5.5 billion last year, equivalent to 38.69% of Vietnam’s total. Of the amount, around 21.6% went to the property market.
Of US$22.76-billion FDI approvals in Vietnam in 2015, some US$2.32 billion flowed into projects in the real estate sector, which was ranked third in terms of attractiveness for foreign investors. HCMC’s property market alone lured some US$1.3 billion in FDI in the same year.
A number of foreign firms have invested in property projects in Vietnam by acquiring shares of developers, contributing capital and lending.
