Foreigners are considered one of the driving forces of demand in the Vietnamese real estate market, especially for high-end real estate products. However, according to regulations, not all projects are allowed to sell to foreigners.
Under Government Decree No. 99/2015/ND-CP, foreign individuals are only allowed to purchase and own no more than 30% of the number of apartments in a condominium building; for individual houses including villas, townhouses, they are only allowed to buy, rent, or own no more than 250 houses in an area with a population equivalent to a ward-level administrative unit.
However, not all real estate projects are allowed to be sold to foreigners. According to Decree No. 99, foreign individuals are only allowed to own houses in commercial housing investment projects, except for areas that ensure national defense and security as provided for by Vietnamese law.
The Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Public Security are responsible for determining specific areas that need to ensure security and national defense in each locality and have documents notifying the Provincial People's Committee to serve as a basis for directing the Department of Construction to specifically identify the list of commercial housing investment projects on the area where foreign individuals are not allowed to own houses.
This means that not all real estate projects are allowed to sell houses to foreigners. However, provincial construction departments rarely disclose lists of projects that are allowed to sell to foreigners, and projects in restricted areas are not allowed to be sold to foreigners, making it difficult for many businesses and customers to access this information. To ensure compliance with the law on house trading, development companies often actively report and seek opinions from competent authorities regarding whether their projects are allowed to sell houses to foreigners or not.
For example, in the case of Dat Phuong Hoi An Joint Stock Company, the company had a written request to the Department of Construction of Quang Nam Province regarding whether they were allowed to sell houses to foreigners in the Dong Na urban area and Cồn Tiến Urban Area in Hoi An.
Specifically, according to Dat Phuong, the Dong Na urban area (Casamia Calm Hoi An) has 112 villas open for sale in the second quarter of 2021, has completed sales, and all customers are Vietnamese. Currently, some European guests are asking to buy houses in this project, and Dat Phuong Hoi An's customers also asked the company about whether they could transfer houses to foreigners.
In response to document No. 161 / DPHA-P3 dated May 20, 2021 of Dat Phuong Hoi An Joint Stock Company regarding the ownership of houses by foreigners in the Cồn Tiến New Urban Area, Cam Thanh Commune, and the Dong Na Urban Area, Cam Ha Commune, the Quang Nam Province Department of Construction stated that the investment area for these projects did not allow foreign organizations and individuals to own according to regulations.
Representatives of Dat Phuong Hoi An said that actively grasping such information will help the company and customers strictly comply with real estate business regulations. With the reply document from the Quang Nam Department of Construction, the company will have more appropriate development and business directions.
It is known that the Dong Na project by Dat Phuong is implementing construction to hand over to customers at the end of 2021. For the Cồn Tiến urban area project, Dat Phuong is planning to launch it in 2022.
