More time for investors to change housing projects

December 08, 2014 | 09:17

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Investors are allowed to change the number of apartments at their housing projects or convert their apartment projects into budget housing or service buildings until the end of 2015, according to a new circular issued by the Ministry of Construction.

HQC Plaza, which is a condo project of Hoang Quan Real Estate Joint Stock Co. under construction in HCMC’s Binh Chanh District, has been converted into a budget apartment project
PHOTO: MANH TUNG

Circular 18/2014/TT-BXD gives investors one more year to complete changes of usage purposes of their commercial housing projects.

In March last year, the ministry issued Circular 02/2013/TT-BXD guiding the changes for commercial condo and urban area projects and the conversion of commercial apartments into budget housing or service buildings. This circular applied to the projects approved by relavent agencies but yet to be developed or the projects under construction but their products no longer met market demand.

When the circular came into force, the investors with large apartment inventories sought approval to divide apartments of their commercial housing projects into smaller units to make them more afforable. Reality showed there is high demand for small apartments with lower prices.

However, the number of housing projects already allowed for purpose changes has been small since Circular 02/2013/TT-BXD took effect one year and a half ago.

As of September, the developers of 21 housing projects in HCMC had applied for dividing 10,242 apartments into 13,599 units. But only five out of them had been approved with more than 3,800 apartments to be converted into 4,700.

The authorities of HCMC have approved eight out of 11 housing projects for conversion into budget ones.

SGT

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