Remember more than a year ago, on the forums, the story of “leaving the street to the forest” always attracted a lot of people’s interest and sharing. The pandemic makes long-distance travel difficult. The days hanging around in the apartment walls make urban people dream of a life in the mountains, in harmony with nature. That is also the reason why the farmstay market share flourished. And also thanks to the boom wave of farsmstay, many investors down the money “won big”.
The story of Mr. Ng. is a prime example. In 2020, Mr. Ng. bought a plot of land in Hoa Binh at the price of 300 million VND for a land of 400m2. Originally intended for a weekend getaway, but within just over 6 months, Mr. Ng. was called by a broker to pay 500 million dong. Seeing that farmstay land is easy to get a good deal, Mr. Ng. buy more plots of land adjacent to Hanoi in Hoa Binh.
According to Mr. Ng, the land of farmstay has a strong fever in the period of 2020-2021. At this time, he used to make a profit on dozens of land plots and on average, each deal earned a difference of at least VND 200 million -1 billion.
However, Mr. Ng, revealed, currently 3 of his land plots in Hoa Binh bought from mid-2021 are in the situation of “no one asked”. This horizontal investor said that from the beginning of 2022 until now, land transactions in the coastal areas have been slow. If any investor escapes in 2021, then fortunately, anyone who waits for the price to increase must accept to bury capital or cut losses. Even, cutting losses up to 10% but not sure there are buyers.
In the same situation as Mr. Ng, Mr. M. also spent 3 billion VND to buy a land plot of more than 500m2 in Hoa Binh. He plans to build and create a beautiful resort homestay. When attracting a stable number of visitors, Mr. M. will transfer.
However, the reality of buying and selling is not easy. Up to now, Mr. M. said he has invested nearly 20 billion VND to build the homestay. Homestay has come into operation to welcome guests, but the expected number of guests is not as expected. And even selling and transferring homestay is difficult to find new investors.
“Now people don’t like ‘farmstay’, ‘homestay’ anymore. I’ve been looking for customers to sell but haven’t been able to. But to maintain the homestay as it is now, the operating costs are quite expensive,” lamented Mr. M. .
According to Dr. Dinh The Hien, an economist, farmstay is just a trend. Mr. Hien once predicted that, in 2020, people rushed to buy several thousand square meters of land in remote areas, this expert felt “not good”. It looks beautiful in the evening, but they want to leave because they are afraid of ghosts. Not to mention, to make farmstay need qualified waiters, logistics … the investment problem to reach breakeven point is difficult, the more you do it, the more you lose.
A real estate business leader from Hanoi said that farmstay was just a temporary trend when the epidemic appeared. But everything is back to normal, the needs and habits of being in the inner city, near the workplace, convenient to send children to school are still present. It is very difficult to leave the city to live in the forest unless determined to establish a real business and career there.
Currently, online job requests are no longer popular. Many businesses force employees to come to work normally. The transactions are almost direct. Therefore, “dreaming” of the forest living with nature to come true is very difficult for young people. Because they also worry about “rice, rice, money”, they have to do enough jobs to work hard and have time for relationships. At the end of a day, they are just tired and want to sleep to regain strength for the next day, no time to enjoy the mountains. On the other hand, tourism reconnects, people tend to go to the sea, go to other countries than go to the mountains, with monotonous activities.
“This is the reason why investors who buy farmstay in 2021 but have not yet sold them all have to accept to “lay down” for 2-3 years to be able to get out. Many of my friends flock to Hoa Binh, Thach That, and Ba Vi to buy. But it’s hard to find customers. Cut losses but still can’t sell,” the leader said.
Source: CafeF
Source: Vietnam Insider