Nguyen Van Duc: "I oppose the officetel model"

Nguyen Van Duc, Deputy General Director of Dat Lanh Real Estate Co., Ltd expressed his views at a meeting held on September 08 by the HCM City Real Estate Association (HoREA) and the Department of Industry under the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission.

Explaining in detail about this model, Duc exemplified that for a land lot with an area of 100,000 square meters, the proportion of land use is 7 and 1 for apartments and commercial mall, respectively. It means that the area allowed for apartment construction is 70,000 square meters and commercial mall is 10,000 square meters.

The area of this commercial mall is calculated to meet the demand of the residents living on this land lot, avoiding affecting the service infrastructure of other places.

Many enterprises also build commercial malls in accordance with the proportion. However, many buildings are built next to each other and other private commercial centers, causing the sluggish business to these commercial centers. For example, supermarkets are set up in the apartment buildings on Le Dai Hanh Street, District 10, HCMC.

Consequently, many enterprises turn commercial centers into the apartments to serve as both office and apartment, called officetel. This type of apartment has an area of 25 - 50 square meters so its price is lower than that of normal apartment.

Although this officetel model helps enterprises increase their profits but clearly, it is not in compliance with the original construction structure. At the same time, it also violates the number of residents allowed on the licensed area and disrupts the whole technical and service infrastructures of the building, Duc said.

"According to my research data, there are currently over 10,000 constructed officetels in HCMC. 10,000 more officetels will be introduced to the market in the near future. At present, the number of officetels account for 10 – 20 per cent of each apartment project, i.e., if the project has 1,000 apartments, there will be 100-200 officetels”, Duc stated.

The greatest drawback of this model is to cause more burdens on the regional infrastructure related to education, health care, commerce, security…

Besides, there exists the possibility of conflicts among residents, for example, the payment of maintenance fees. Although an officetel has an area smaller than that of a normal apartment, the number of residents living in officetel are similar to those living in a normal apartment.

Thus, the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission should offer suitable solutions to this new model in the coming time.