Many secondary investors are willing to sell their apartment projects at loss by cutting prices by up to 30 percent, while the slashed price is in fact still enough to ensure profits for the primary investors.

The secondary investor is the last out of the many investors to whom a project is transferred from its initial investor.

Most of the discounted apartment projects have been bought and resold among many investors, making selling prices far higher than the real costs the initial investors had put in building them.

The Hoang Anh Gold House project in Ho Chi Minh City’s Nha Be District, for instance, was initially invested by Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group, who spent a total of VND73.6 million on the project.

In September of 2009, Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group transferred the entire project, which included 996 apartments, to the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) at a price of VND19 million a square meter.

Yet BIDV was not the final investor of the project, since the bank later transferred it to Saigon Mekong Co, but the deal’s value was unpublicized.

Earlier this month Saigon Mekong put 500 apartments of the project on sale and managed to sell 300 of them at the price of VND14.4 million a square meter, 35 percent lower than the rate it announced in 2009.

In this situation, Saigon Mekong Co is the only investor to incur losses on the apartments, while Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group, the primary investor, has profited from its deal with BIDV since the original cost of the project was only VND13.1 million a square meter.

In 2009 the real estate market also saw many investors slash prices on their apartment projects.

Two cases that shocked the market were the price cuts at the Hoang Anh River View and Phu Hoang Anh projects, in District 2 and 7, respectively.

Announced for sale with prices cut by as much as 45 percent, the two set a trend for other projects including the Truong Tho and Orient Apartment to offer price cuts.

Regarding the Hoang Anh River View project, whose price cut from $2,500 to $1,350 a square meter left insiders skeptical, a real estate expert from the Hoang Anh Construction and Development House JSC -- the project’s investor - said it was in fact a good move.

“Since the cost price of the project was only $1,200 a square meter, we could still earn profits with the discounted price of $1,350 a square meter,” he said.