New dominant forces of real estate market

The comeback of Geleximco

Geleximco had a spectacular breakthrough when it rose to the second place among the investors who have enough housing to be qualified for sale. The list of those 191 projects has recently been announced by Hanoi Department of Construction.

Previously, Geleximco was not famous in the real estate market. The first project to be implemented was Le Trong Tan urban area. However, when the real estate market fell into recession, more than 1,000 villas there were left halfway to completion and unoccupied. The name “Geleximco” has blurred since.

Nevertheless, over the past two years, Geleximco has unexpectedly re-emerged with ambitious projects. The first was the re-launch of Gemek and Gemek Premium apartment blocks in Le Trong Tan urban area. After that, nearly 2,000 apartments of Green Stars Project on Pham Van Dong Street were invested in and put into use.

Geleximco has particularly focused on the apartment segment with such large-scale projects as An Binh City and Gelexia Riverside.

Also, HTL, a subsidiary of Geleximco, is carrying out the Gelexia Riverside project at No.885 Tam Trinh, Hoang Mai district with four 31- to 35-storey buildings and 1,602 apartments.

If Le Trong Tan urban area is also counted, Geleximco has a total of 6,300 housing units that are eligible for sale. Geleximco is now ranking only behind the largest investor – Vingroup, which currently has seven projects, with thousands of units in each.

The mystery of Sunshine Group

As a rookie, the Sunshine Group shocked the real estate market when it announced to have acquired and developed five outstanding projects, whose total investment was worth tens of trillion VND.

An example is the Sunshine Center project, located on Pham Hung Street with the total investment of VND1,6 trillion (US$72 million). Two others are Sunshine Garden and Sunshine Riverside with the total investment of VND3 trillion (roughly US$132.2 million) and VND2.5 trillion (about US$110.1 million) respectively. Another one is Sunshine Palace, a small-scale project located next to Vingroup’s Times City.

All these four Sunshine Group projects provide about 3,000 apartments for the market.

Besides, Sunshine Group has announced the Sunshine City project near Thang Long Bridge with the total investment of VND5,000 billion (about US$220.4 million) and planned to invest about US$66.1 million in Sunshine Boulevard on Khuat Duy Tien street.

Suddenly becoming a new power in the real estate market, however, little is known about their motive force.

Sunshine Group, fully known as Sunshine Group JSC., was established in April 2016 with the initial capital of VND300 billion (US$13.2 million). In less than a year, this enterprise has increased its capital tenfold. However, the giants behind this enterprise are still a mystery, except for the head of the Management Board Do Anh Tuan, who used to be a civil servant.

Hai Phat, TNR Holdings and MIK Group enter the race

Not as outstanding as Sunshine Group, Hai Phat is also expanding its influence in the real estate market.

Hai Phat has three projects in the mentioned eligible-for-sale list: Roman Plaza, HPC Landmark 105 and The Vesta, all of which provide more than 3,000 units.

Hai Phat even took an unprecedented step in acquiring and restarting the CT2-105 building of Usilk City urban area, former belonging to Song Da - Thang Long JSC., despite enormous difficulties in dealing with contracts and transfer procedures.

At present, the project has completed the raw construction and entered the finishing stage, being eligible for sale.

Meanwhile, MIK Group also shows great ambition. The first project developed by this group, Imperia Garden, has sold 1,600 apartments.

Another project is Imperia Sky Garden (423 Minh Khai) with 1,800 apartments, which has been eligible to open a 681-apartment building for sale. Also, MIK Group is implementing a small project in Long Bien District with 366 apartments.

Also being a project developer like MIK Group, TNR Holdings expressed its ambitions with such large-scale projects as Goldmark City, Goldsilk Complex and Gold Season with 8,000 apartments.

Despite being new in the market, these names are becoming the dominant force in the market with bold steps.

The common feature of these enterprises is the ownership of land plots at prime sites and the capability of carrying out multiple projects at the same time.

Meanwhile, once-famous state-owned enterprises such as Vinaconex, HUD and Sudico are largely absent from the list of 191 projects that are eligible for sale.