Realty developer to spend billions on road,

Nguyen Viet Tao, general director of NVT Corporation, said the corporation would invest some VND50 billion in Ly Te Xuyen Street, about 500 meters long and 20 meters wide, linking Cay Keo and Tam Binh streets in the area.

Tao noted it was not the corporation’s responsibility for building the road but it had decided to upgrade the public road in a move to add value to its condo projects underway in the district.

Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony, Truong Van Thong, chairman of Thu Duc District, said it was now inconvenient to use Ly Te Xuyen Street because it had been flooded and muddy for years. When the upgrade is complete, the road would contribute to improving communications in the area.

NVT is developing a nine-hectare housing area, including two 15-storey condo blocks with around 450 units, and 50 row houses.

Also in the location is a condo project called Babylon Residence 1 with two 21-storey blocks containing 690 apartments of 75 to 240 square meters. About 35 row houses, a commercial center and other services will be developed in the project.

The condo project was launched last month, with prices ranging from VND14 million to VND15 million per square meter, an affordable price range compared to other projects.

As for the residential market, market research firm CB Richard Ellis Vietnam (CBRE) has released its quarterly report which says the trend for mid-end and affordable development continued moving forward in the second quarter.

The period saw 17 projects with 3,450 apartments coming onto the market in the second quarter, with the affordable segment accounting for over half. Given the shift towards the affordable and mid-end segments, condo developers were becoming more geographically diverse than ever.

According to CBRE, most transactions remained in the affordable segment with unit sizes of 60 to 80 square meters especially favored in the price range of US$600-900 per square meter. It is expected to see 4,300 apartments from eight projects to come online from next year.

Rudolf Hever, associate director of research and consultancy for CBRE, remarked the residential market had become competitive for developers in the past 12 months. Many of them had looked at alternative options for profit generation, thus they also had offered more options to potential homebuyers.