Standards of luxury apartments required, association says

Many so-called luxury apartment buildings have debuted with very high prices. However, Nguyen Tan Van, chairman of the Vietnam Architectures’ Association, warned that there was no legal standard of hi-quality apartments in Vietnam.

Dau Tu Tai Chinh Newspaper has caught up with Van to interview him about the quality of the apartment buildings.

Dau Tu Tai Chinh Newspaper: What is your definition of a high-quality apartment?

Nguyen Tan Van: Many property companies have called their projects as “luxury apartment building”. However, I suggest people should not buy into that name.

There is no legal standard of luxury apartments in Vietnam. Many people rely on size, the number of rooms and price of an apartment to rank it. In Singapore, a luxury apartment has a private elevator way and meets up high environmental requirements.

An apartment building that lacks parking slots for residents cannot be considered as luxury. Local builders, meanwhile, tend to blame apartment residents for arisen problems.

Buyers also lack regulations that enable them to check and supervise the information about the apartments that real estate companies advertise for.

Local residents earlier were acquainted with small and narrow apartments. Therefore they mistake large apartments with elevators and security guards for luxury ones.

Have the Vietnam Architectures’ Association made any recommendation?

We have asked the Ministry of Construction to set up standards of every type of living accommodations.

Many property firms announce they are selling smart and energy-saving apartments. But how are smart and energy-saving apartments? Developed countries have detailed definition of those apartments, but Vietnam does not.

Therefore, the government should design standards of living accommodations in order to protect the benefits of property buyers.

What is your opinion about the construction works on apartment buildings and new residential zones?

Newly-built apartment buildings and urban zones have provided a large amount of living accommodations. The quality of those places is also better than ones that were built in previous years.

However, we focused solely on building houses for high-income earners, while there is a lack of measures protecting property buyers’ benefits and houses for low-income earners.

Many low-cost houses have been built, but I doubt low-income earners can afford those places. Thus we should focus on helping them to rent houses with low costs. – SGGP

Tags: luxury apartments, Vietnam Property market, vietnam real estate market