HANOI, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- High house prices were making it hard for even well-paid people in Vietnam to afford a home in cities, Vietnam News reported on Friday, citing the Vietnam Association of Realtors.
According to the association's recent report, housing affordability in Vietnam has declined.
Deputy General Director of batdongsan.com.vn Nguyen Quoc Anh said the gap between the average salary and house prices had shown that Vietnamese young people have always faced financial struggles in affording a home.
According to the PropertyGuru Vietnam, in 2004, an individual needed to accumulate 31.3 years of average salary to afford a 60sq.m apartment priced at 600 million Vietnamese dong (23,580 U.S. dollars) while the interest rate for savings was at 7.4 percent.
In 2024, the buyer would need the equivalent of 25.8 years of salary savings to afford the same apartment, now priced at 3 billion dong (117,900 dollars) despite a lower saving interest rate of 4.5 percent.
Anh said although the number of years of accumulating income and interest rates had decreased over time, young people of all generations still need to save over a long period in order to own a house. ■