Multi-million-dollar resort booming

The offering event about luxury resort projects of Sun Group in Singapore last month attracted the interest of not only the inhabitants but also the investors there. The group’s resorts include Premier Village Phu Quoc Resort, Premier Village Danang Resort and InterContinental Danang Sun Pensinsula Resort. Meanwhile, Vinpearl Resort & Villas of Vingroup is currently offering its villas at the cost of over $1 million each in Danang, Khanh Hoa and Phu Quoc.

At the end of 2015, Eurowindow announced its investment of more than VND2 trillion (nearly $100 million) to construct two 5-star resorts on a 35-hectares site - Mövenpick Cam Ranh Resort (24ha) and Radisson Blu Cam Ranh Resort (more than 11ha) on Bai Dai coast in the central province of Khanh Hoa’s Cam Ranh bay.

Mövenpick Cam Ranh Resort is a high-class 5-star resort managed by Mövenpick Group and designed by world famous architects with a mix of modern and local architectural style. The resort population encompass 121 high-class villas - Mövenpick villas, 250 international 5-star standard Mövenpick hotel rooms and 96 resort apartments of Mövenpick condotel accompanying with entertainment services including Swiss Village, golf courses and tennis courts, beach club, restaurants, and kids area. Especially in this project, Eurowindow will give a lot of incentives to secondary investors on 121 Mövenpick Villas and 96 Mövenpick condotel apartments.

Hannes Romauch, general director of Eurowindow Nha Trang said that the main three advantages of Mövenpick villas and Mövenpick condotel is the international brand with an extremely flexible management method; 100 per cent Mövenpick villas and Mövenpick condotel are towarding the sea and possess sea-view (which is the most important criteria of coastal resort villas) and secured investment opportunity with high profitability, accompanying with bank guarantee of committed profits.

According to him, in the current market, most of resort properties that are exploited by international management units is for hotel renting purpose but not allowed to trade for business and possess under the management brand. In contrast, some of the resort real estates are permitted to trade and possess but are built, operated, and managed by domestic developers with their own standards.

“With Mövenpick Cam Ranh Resort, the purchasers has a right to buy, transfer, and utilize the resort villas/apartments under the brand of Mövenpick villas and Mövenpick condotel. Concurrently, with the flexible management method, the purchasers not only have a right to live in the villa up to 180 days per year but also to participate in the sub-lease program and earn 85 per cent of the rent profits but not under 10 per cent per year within 10 years. This is the highest commitment in profit currently in the resort real estate market,” he said.

In additional, for the those purchasers who wish to ensure the safety of their investments, they can select the bank guarantee option for the rental profit commitment level.

Eurowindow developer has cooperated with VPBank to commit a minimum 9 per cent per year profit for the purchaser and a possibility to loan at most 70 per cent the property value in a 20-year period with many incentives about interest. Mövenpick villas are the first and only resort real estate in Vietnam implementing the bank guarantee policy for the profit.

Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) said that Vietnam was currently a bright spot in the world economic growth, especially the high potential of the tourism industry in Vietnam. Therefore, the development of the high class coastal resort villa category is becoming an indispensable demand.

However, according to Chau, not many corporations were dare to invest to this market segments. “Only few investors, who actually possess the financial resources or able to borrow through financial institutions, deploy this investment,” Chau said.

Having the same point of view, Leong Boon Hoe, CBRE Singapore’s CEO explained that possessing real estates in Vietnam was becoming a tendency of investors and inhabitants in Singapore. One of the reason is that the selling price for the middle class and high class segments in Vietnam currently is much lower than in Singapore and some other countries.

He cited, a 300-square metre villa in Sentosa Island costs about $12.6 – 14 million, a three-bedroom apartment costs about $500,000- 800,000. Meanwhile, in Vietnam it costs about $1 million each villa. The apartments fluctuate around $150.000 and $1 million each. This makes the luxury resort segment in Vietnam attractive to purchasers from many countries.

Discussing about the potential profitability, a representative of a foreign investment fund in Vietnam said that this segment only target to upstream customers. “Particularly with real estate investors, most of them are smart and experienced so that to spend several million USD to buy a villa, it is sure that they have calculated carefully the potential efficiency of the investment,” he said.

“The selling price and the potential profitability are the advantages of this segment in Vietnam compared to other countries in the region. However, only the projects of the claimed developers can prove themselves in the international market. This is also the reason why only big players can invest in expensive resort projects at this time,” he emphased.