Transaction floors count cost of failure

September 10, 2012 | 10:01
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Hanoi transaction floor centre owners are struggling with difficulties due to the market downturn caused by low liquidity.

Nguyen Manh Hung, owner of Thang Long Real Estate Transaction Floor located near Duong Noi New Urban Area in Ha Dong district, told VIR that he had to close his centre and come back to help his wife with a cafeteria shop in a smaller street.

Hung’s centre used to be the agency for many real estate projects, especially projects located along Le Van Luong road.

In the peak business climate more than one year ago, Hung said he could sign dozens of accommodation purchasing contracts per day.

“However, the market downturn now brings us very few contracts every month and the commission fees are not enough for me to cover all operation expenses of the centre,’ Hung said.
Having 12 staff from the beginning, till the end of July Hung had only one assistant.

Hung’s case is not unusual nowadays. Many transactions floors have been closed and disappeared.

In streets which used to be the hottest areas for real estate activities such as Nguyen Thi Dinh, Trung Hoa-Nhan Chinh or Le Van Luong, the number of operational transaction centres is now very low.

These streets became more quieter compared to the busy environment more than one year ago filled with brokerages and customers.

There were used to be more than 40 centres located along the extended in Le Van Luong street, but now more than two-thirds are closed.

Apart from closing real estate transaction centres to move to other business or re-lease the houses to others, some owners have coordinated to be an alliance to overcome from difficulties.
Recently five real estate transaction floors in Hanoi decided to coordinate into an alliance to cope with the difficulties.

Named G5, the alliance consists of five members who are actively operating in real estate transaction of Sudico, Dat Xanh North, MAXland, DTJ and Asia.

With the advantages of an alliance, G5 can now supply full range of services in real estate sector, from research and reporting market’s beats, consulting strategy and projects’ promotion, distributing and introducing projects to customers, as well as offering investment opportunities for developers.

The alliance also covers land and housing price assessment activities and auctions.
Alliance members assumed that it could improve the capacity to be enough to cover large-scale projects of hundreds of hectares which have been covered by foreign suppliers.

At present, G5 represents many projects such as Vista De Lago, Star City Le Van Luong and Indochina Plaza in Hanoi, Green Bay Tower in Halong and many others.

In a recent report by Hanoi Department of Construction, 122 over 500 trading floors have suspended operations and 200 floors reported no successful trades.

According to the Real Estate Business Law, since January 2009 all transactions must be dealt via real estate transaction floors.

However, in the downturn, real estate developers could not sell their products  while customers waited for further price reductions before deciding to pour money in the market. The result is that thousands of apartments and houses in Hanoi are now unsold.

According to Tran Hop Dung, Hanoi Construction Department’s chief of the Economic Management Division,  to be competive and survive in a such difficult situation owners of centres must have long-term strategy.

By Bich Ngoc

vir.com.vn

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