TOKYO — Married with two children, Nguyen Thi Huyen is a typical Hanoi office worker. And earlier this month the 41-year-old resident of Vietnam’s capital did something that is becoming increasingly common among the nation’s upper middle class: She went into a showroom of Vinhomes, part of the country’s biggest conglomerate, Vingroup, and bought the family’s first apartment.
“Buying a house is a trend among our generation. Real estate prices in Vietnam are soaring, so buying a house means having an asset to sell,” she told Nikkei Asia. The Vietnamese real estate website Batdongsan.com says the average selling price of homes nationwide as of June 2024 was 24% higher than at the start of 2023, driven in large part by the capital’s apartment market.
