From Macroeconomic Policies to Investment Opportunities: The Eastern Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Market on the Rise

In recent years, the eastern part of Ho Chi Minh City has emerged as the city’s new growth hub, benefiting directly from macroeconomic shifts, economic development policies, public investment, and real estate legal reforms. These policies not only stimulate economic growth but also reshape the urban landscape and real estate market of the area.

1. Macroeconomic Policies Supporting Growth

The Government has set an ambitious GDP growth target of 8.3-8.5% for 2026, the highest in the past 25 years. To achieve this, both fiscal and monetary policies are being significantly loosened to boost production, investment, and consumption.

• Public investment: The government has accelerated public investment, particularly in infrastructure. Since early 2025, numerous directives have been issued by the Government and the Prime Minister requiring ministries, sectors, and local authorities to promptly allocate and disburse public investment capital, ensuring progress and efficiency. This has become a key driver behind major infrastructure projects in the East such as metro lines, ring roads, and bridges or tunnels crossing the Saigon River.

• Bank credit: In the first six months of 2025, total outstanding credit grew by nearly 10%, 2.5 times higher than the same period last year. The real estate sector alone recorded credit growth of around 15%, indicating that capital flows are strongly directed toward real estate, with the eastern area being a key development focus.

• Interest rates: remain stable. Deposit rates have not fluctuated significantly, while lending rates are kept low, reducing capital costs for both businesses and individuals. If the U.S. cuts interest rates in September 2025, exchange rate pressure will ease, providing room for Vietnam to further lower domestic rates, thereby stimulating credit growth and supporting the economy.

While macroeconomic easing aims to foster growth, it also carries side effects for investors, namely inflation and currency depreciation.

• The USD/VND exchange rate has moved contrary to the global trend, with the VND depreciating by 5.6% since the beginning of the year against the USD, while globally (as measured by the DXY Index), the USD has declined by nearly 10%. 

• Gold prices in Vietnam have mirrored global trends, with SJC gold bars rising by 48.8% year-to-date.

Given this context, Virtus Prosperity assesses that real estate, particularly landed property in Ho Chi Minh City, is a more suitable investment channel compared to gold or savings, as it both hedges against VND depreciation and captures asset appreciation opportunities.

2. Real Estate Market Directly Benefiting

These macroeconomic policies have provided strong momentum for the real estate market, with the East standing out due to its strategic location, infrastructure, and planning advantages.

• In Hanoi, primary apartment prices continue to rise, though the secondary market has cooled. Landed property maintains steady growth, serving as a “store of value” for investors as apartment prices reach new highs.

• In Ho Chi Minh City, both primary and secondary markets are showing strong growth. In Q2 2025, apartment prices surged, especially in the eastern and southern areas. Landed property and residential plots are considered safer and more promising than other real estate types.

New apartment supply in HCMC is expected to increase significantly during 2025-2027, while social housing supply is projected to rise between 2026-2030, making sudden price spikes in the near future less likely. 

In Ho Chi Minh City:

Source: CBRE

Similar patterns are observed in Hanoi, where several large-scale projects are expected to boost supply in the next two years.

In Hanoi:

Source: CBRE

Virtus Prosperity assesses that landed property and residential plots in HCMC are safer and have higher appreciation potential compared to other real estate types in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

3. Real Estate Legal Reforms

The East also benefits from a series of important legal adjustments:

• Land Law 2024: abolishes the national land price framework, allowing provincial authorities to issue annual land price tables. In HCMC, the land price framework for 2024-2025 is 8-15 times higher than that of 2020-2024, significantly increasing land use costs for new projects.

• Restrictions on plot subdivision and sales: The Real Estate Business Law 2023 expands the ban on land subdivision and sales to Grade-III urban areas, which will reduce land plot supply while demand in major cities like HCMC remains strong.

• Resolutions 170 and 171: introduce special mechanisms to resolve land and project bottlenecks in Hanoi, HCMC, Da Nang, and Khanh Hoa. This is expected to unlock many legally entangled projects in HCMC, including those in the East.

• Proposal to waive building permits: HCMC has proposed exempting permits for buildings under 7 stories, simplifying investment and construction procedures, cutting costs, and shortening project timelines.

The combined impact of macroeconomic easing, public investment acceleration, and real estate legal reforms is creating powerful momentum for the East of Ho Chi Minh City. As the city’s new growth center, the area not only benefits from domestic credit and FDI inflows but also from a more flexible legal environment that helps unlock stalled projects.

In a context of economic volatility, inflation, and VND depreciation, real estate - particularly landed property in the East, continues to be seen as a safe and promising investment channel, and a major growth driver for HCMC in the coming years.

With strong expertise in market advisory, Virtus Prosperity supports foreign investors in entering the Vietnamese market by analyzing the legal framework, identifying reliable local partners, and assessing sectoral and regional project potential.

We help investors shorten market entry time, optimize investment structures, and manage risks in a rapidly changing regulatory environment, unlocking value from the earliest stages of the development cycle.