Many local residents were shocked to hear that a number of apartments in HCM City worth US$1 to $5 million each have been bought by Vietnamese customers recently.

Novaland, developer of the Sunrise City, has reportedly offered several apartments worth between $1 and $5 million each. The five-bedroom penthouse apartments on the 35th floor of the Sunrise City building are considered sky-high villas.

Prime location and luxury furnishings were the major reasons that help the developer ask for such high prices, said a Novaland salesman.

A manager at Novaland said singer Cam Ly had purchased a 400sq.m apartment priced at over $1 million while singer Dam Vinh Hung had registered to purchase a 700sq.m penhouse apartment worth $5 million at Sunrise City.

Nguyen Kim Son, director for Development and Business at BTA Investment Management Viet Nam Co developer of the Diamond Island project in HCM City’s District 2, said the project’s Bloc B, which is now under construction, would provide 300 apartments, including 10 worth between US$2 and $3 million each. Apartments worth over $1 million would account for 25 per cent of the project, he said.

The Diamond Island Project is a complex of residential and hotel buildings covering nearly 8ha area near the Sai Gon River and the Giong Ong To Canal in District 2’s Binh Trung Dong Ward. The project includes 1,100 apartments ranging from 86sq.m to 615sq.m in space, with one to four bedrooms each.

BTA said all its $3 million apartments and 40 per cent of those that cost between $1 million to $2 million each had been purchased. Seventy per cent of the buyers of these luxury apartments were locals or overseas Vietnamese and the remaining 30 per cent were foreigners, the company said.

"The country now has many nouveau-riche people who are looking for multi-million dollar apartments," Son was quoted by the Sai Gon Marketing newspaper as saying. He added most local buyers were well-known personalities.

Son said the standard multi-million dollar apartment would have high-end equipment and luxurious inner decorations, private swimming pools and memberships in yacht clubs.

Meanwhile, a sales agent at a property company who declined to be named said all the above statements were just advertising gimmicks.

He said the developers of serviced apartment projects in HCM City such as Blooming Park, the Vista, Sai Gon Pearl and Estella, had found it difficult to sell penthouse apartments at these buildings which are priced at over VND10 billion ($540,000) each. Tighter control over bank loans aimed at discouraging real estate speculation is one of the reasons that make customers reluctant to buy such luxury apartments, he added.

Truong Quoc Hung, head of the marketing group No. 2 at Phu My Hung Co said the company’s Riverside Residence project includes a number of apartments with a housing space of 554sq.m that are priced up to $1.23 million each. He said it was difficult to seek buyers for these luxury apartments and the company was yet to sell even one of them.

(Source: Vietnamnet)