BIDV lowers price of 55 apartments of The Era Town after poor sales

May 15th at 13:50

15-05-2020 13:50:50+07:00

Poor sales at The Era Town real estate project forced BIDV to lower the price of 55 apartments to about VND14 million ($610) per square metre.

BIDV Gia Dinh keeps announcing the liquidation of 55 apartments of The Era Town

BIDV Gia Dinh announced the latest round of sales at The Era Town project (District 7, Ho Chi Minh City), with 55 apartments being offered at a 5 per cent discount compared to its initial offer. Accordingly, the real estate products are on trade at VND2.08-5.26 billion ($90,430-228,700) each.

Specifically, the 136sq.m apartments are offered at VND2.08 billion ($90,430), equaling VND15.3 million ($665) per sq.m. The 161.14sq.m ones are on sale for VND2.37-2.39 billion ($103,040-103,910). The largest, 370sq.m apartments are sold for VND5.26 billion ($228,700) or VND14.3 million ($620) per sq.m.

This is not the first time BIDV has opened apartment sales at The Era Town project developed by Duc Khai JSC. In February, the bank announced the sale of 65 apartments at VND2.5-5.5 billion ($108,700-239,130) per unit, or roughly VND15 million ($650) per sq.m.

Last year, BIDV also put 27 apartments of The Era Town on sale to solve its non-performing loans provided to the project. The price at that round was also about VND15 million ($650) per sq.m, fetching VND2.2-5.5 billion ($95,650-239,130) per unit.

BIDV is one of the three banks holding the largest volume of bad debts last year, and this may be the reason behind the urgent sales at the apartment project. According to Pham Duc Lam, chairman of Duc Khai JSC, the apartments that BIDV put on sale are the collateral for the loan the company secured for the project. Since the project has been running hefty losses and has been caught up in legal disputes with residents, it has been unable to make payments on this loan, prompting BIDV to begin selling units.

Disputes at The Era Town

The Era Town became widely known for the prolonged disputes between residents and the developer Duc Khai JSC. One of the disputes was over the developer’s reluctance to organise a meeting with residents, prompting residents to file several lawsuits at the People’s Committee of Phu My ward.

According to the regulations, the developer is obligated to organise the first meeting with residents as soon as more than half of the apartments in the building are in use for more than 12 months. In case the developer does not organise the meeting, the local people’s committee has to organise the meeting as soon as receiving a proposal from the representative of apartment owners. To date, the dispute is still going.

VIR