» » Vung Tau properties in the booming trend

VNRE - Over three years since its first tourism property project got off the ground, the southern coast city of Vung Tau has witnessed the number of property projects on the rising trend, offering more options to individual investors who want to have their second homes in the resort city. Although it started the race later than other provinces such as Danang and Binh Thuan, Vung Tau has proved itself as an attractive destination for tourism property development thanks to its beautiful coastline of over 70 kilometers and its proximity to the economic hub of HCMC.

From tourism properties

Ho Van Nien, vice chairman of Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province, says the potential for tourism property development in the province is huge, but the province is only taking first steps with some projects to gauge the market demand.

“Once we can verify the effectiveness of our tourism development, we will create more favorable conditions to attract investors for tourism properties in the province,” Nien says.

The number of projects has increased significantly since the first villas project named Thanh Binh was started in 2007. This project covers 25 hectares and is designed with a hotel section, some 200 villas and other serviced facilities.

A year later, the young provincial market witnessed the list of tourism property projects grow strongly.

The province’s Xuyen Moc District was chosen as a destination for several projects, including the villas project Hot Spring Binh Chau, the hotel and villa Sea Star Suite project and especially the Ho Tram Strip project, which stands out as the most capital-intensive project with US$4.2 billion invested by the Canadian developer Asian Coast Development Co. The five-star project covers some 169 hectares and is designed with a hotel of 1,100 guest rooms, a casino, a golf course and other serviced facilities.

In Long Dien District nearby, several projects are under development now, such as the Crown Land Long Hai, the villa project Tay Son, or the apartment and commercial project Ocean View Manor. In the neighboring district of Dat Do, the villas and hotel project The Long Hai has joined the market; followed lately by the Oceanami Resort & Luxury Home project in Phuoc Hai Town near the historic mountain Minh Dam in the province. The project is designed with a five-star hotel with 200 guest rooms, 28 bungalows, two blocks of five-story buildings with 100 apartments and some 180 luxury villas.

Meanwhile, Vung Tau City has also welcomed several property projects that are set to join the market in the years to come. Among the projects, the US$4.1-billion Saigon Atlantis Hotel project in Chi Linh Beach will join the market with some 12,000 hotel rooms, 332 luxury villas and some 16,000 apartments.

Besides the hotel, apartment and commercial project named Imperial Complex, Vung Tau City last week saw the Blue Sapphire Resort Vung Tau in Chi Linh Beach joined the property market. The project has a five-star hotel with some 150 guest rooms, a section for 36 luxury beachfront villas and a condo building with 390 apartments and penthouses.

Nien says the province has made efforts to effectively exploit the provincial coastline, and that the investment environment has been improved and favorable conditions have been offered to attract local international investors to the province, which is now home to some 100 tourism property projects.

… to apartment for sale development

In another sector, the resort city still looks underdeveloped when it comes to the segment of apartments for sale as compared with HCMC and Hanoi. As of the end of the second quarter of this year, Vung Tau City has 12 apartment projects with some 5,000 units, according to Savills Vietnam.

Like the other mature markets such as HCMC and Hanoi, the two-bedroom unit is the most favorable choice of customers, followed by three-bedroom apartment. The one-bedroom units occupy a very small market share.

The average selling price of apartments in Vung Tau is around US$750 per square meter, still lower than that of the other tourist cities such as Danang that sees sky-high prices of up to US$1,600 per square meter, or US$1,200 per square meter seen in Nha Trang City.

Commenting on the apartment market in the city, Savills says the apartments for sale market in Vung Tau has just been established and developed over the past few years, and most of Vung Tau citizens have not yet got used to the concept living in apartments like people in other big cities like Hanoi and HCMC. On the other hand, there is still a large amount of land stock in Vung Tau; thus people with high incomes often invest in land lots and villas.

Due to a low growth rate of its population, the market there in the resort city has seen low demand from local buyers, as most buyers in apartment projects in Vung Tau are from neighboring provinces, with 80% coming from HCMC alone.

The market observer says the tourism property market is emerging as a new trend, and Vung Tau has a strong potential to develop this market segment.

Reported by Dinh Dung and Thuy Van/ The Saigon Times

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property developers sydney said... November 16, 2010 at 12:22 PM

very interesting to see the development trends unfolding here