House prices in Vietnam saw growth in the first four months of 2020 compared to the same period last year while a downward trend was observed in rent, according to the Ministry of Construction’s Housing and Real Estate Market Management Department.

In a press release on Thursday, the department said that the selling prices of apartments in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City climbed 1.02 percent and 3.5 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Likewise, house prices in these two cities rose 3.82 percent and 8.36 percent, respectively, over the same period.

Industrial real estate grew 6.2 percent in price, while resorts were unchanged compared to the same period in 2019.

However, retail space rent plummeted ten to 30 percent from before the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the department, outstanding loans in real estate approximated VND531 trillion (US$22.8 billion) as of the end of February.

The outstanding loans were up 1.76 percent in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the same period last year, a much slower growth rate against the five-year average of 7.3 percent.

The first-quarter real estate outstanding loans expanded four percent in 2019 and six percent in the year before.

In the first quarter of 2020, Vietnam only recorded $264 million in foreign direct investment (FDI) in real estate, a drastic decrease from $778.2 million in the same period last year.

According to housing and real estate market management agencies, due to the unfavorable effects of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, real estate businesses were only able to retain about 50 percent of their employees.

The other half were either laid off or furloughed as many real estate projects have come to a standstill.

According to data aggregated by the Ministry of Construction from reports submitted by 34 provinces and cities, only 56 housing development projects with about 20,500 apartments were licensed in the first quarter of this year.

Nearly 1,000 projects were under construction, and 55 projects were completed in the localities.

During this period, up to 80 percent of real estate trading floors across the country had to close or suspend operations, with only about 200 remaining active nationwide.

Vietnam has reported 288 COVID-19 infections, with 241 recoveries and no deaths.

Eight patients — including two cases that had to restart their COVID-19 treatment after retesting positive for the coronavirus following hospital discharges — were declared recovered from the disease on Friday.

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