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Million US$ penthouses booming
The Riverside Residence of Phu My Hung Company and Sunrise City of Nova Land projects in HCM City have introduced luxury suites from over one million dollars to nearly three millions dollars.
The $2.8mil apartment
The apartments worth one million dollars and higher are mostly penthouses. And the 645 sq m apartment on the 35th floor of Sunrise City is one of them.
The apartment with five bedrooms and a lot of luxury equipment and decorations has not been widely advertised to the public for good reason: It has the sale price of $4,300/sq m (completed penthouse) or $3,500/sq m (basic construction finished). This means that the penthouse is worth some $2.8mil, or VND50bil.
According to a marketing staff of Nova Land, penthouses always have sky-high prices because they are located in very ‘beautiful’ positions (there are usually two such apartments in every building, equipped with the most modern material facilities). Though the prices are high, HCM City-based Phat Hung Real Estate Company, one of the distributors of the project, says that two clients have ordered such apartments.
Phu My Hung also has penthouses at its Riverside Residence project worth over VND20bil each. These are apartments with the area of 554 sq m, worth over VND22bil ($1.23mil). Besides luxury home comforts, the apartments also have their own swimming pools.
Nguyen Van Hung, Deputy Director of Tan Dia Real Estate Brokerage Company in district 4, HCM City, said he believes that investors will find it hard to sell apartments with prices of VND20-50bil. If people have this sum of money, they would be able to buy beautiful apartments at Phu Gia or Phu My Hung areas.
As for the apartments in Sunrise City and Riverside Residence projects, buyers mostly have been interested in apartments with areas of 110 sq m and less.
The investors of Sunrise City and Riverside Residence themselves admit that it will not be easy to find buyers for the expensive penthouses in the current difficult period. Some analysts have even asked if the investors really intend to sell the luxury apartments, or are they just advertising the expensive penthouses to polish the image of the projects.
For sale or just for advertisement?
At some other luxury projects like Blooming Park, The Vista, Saigon Pearl, Estella in HCM City, there are also penthouses, but they are under VND10bil.
Blooming Park, for example, has a penthouse with the area of over 300 sq m, which is now priced at $600,000 (over VND10bil), Estella project has a 260 sq m apartment priced at $500,000 (over VND9bil), and The Vista has 14 penthouses (470 sq m each) with the prices of over $700,000 each (nearly VND13bil).
The apartments have been offered for sale for one year, but no client has expressed an intention to purchase one.
At the end of January 2008, Phuong Nam Housing Company in HCM City announced the Southern Palace project on Nguyen Van Linh road in district 7, HCM City with the tentative sale price of $7,000 sq m.
The apartments from the 9th to 11th floors of the building are penthouses with the areas of 300-400 sq m, worth $2.1-2.8mil/apartment.
However, the apartments remain on paper to date. Kingdom Group (KHI) announced the sale of Raffes Residences at Non Nuoc beach in Da Nang city in July 2008 at $285,000/apartment at the lowest and $1mil at the highest. However, there has been no more information about the sale of the apartments.
Analysts say that the sum of $2.8mil is enough to purchase six high-grade apartments or two luxury apartments in the centre of many cities in the US. In Vietnam, the sum of money is enough to buy 10-20 luxury apartments in HCM City and Hanoi, and build 200 apartments for low-income earners.
VietNamNet, TP
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