While the real estate market in general remains lackluster, the resort real estate market in Hoa Binh, a mountainous area near Hanoi has been heating up.

Being one of the two greatest urban centers and economic centers in Vietnam, Hanoi has a high demand for resort real estate sites near the inner city. The rapid development of resort real estate has turned neighboring areas, like Soc Son, Dai Lai, Son Tay and Ba Vi into resort real estate satellites.

However, as the centers have become cramped, Hanoians have to look for a new center, and Hoa Binh has become the favorite destination.

Hanoians flocking to Luong Son

Luong Son is a district of Hoa Binh province, contiguous to the expanded Hanoi. The land area, in the thoughts of many people, is a remote mountainous area. However, in fact, as the Highway No 6 has been upgraded, Luong Son has become nearer.

Nearly ten years ago, some Hanoians once came to Luong Son to seek large land plots to build houses for their accommodations. They were the artists, or some “special people” who had powerful financial capability and wanted to “live in the nature”.

At that time, “the houses in Luong Son” were the words used to say about a strange pastime of some people. No one wanted to go to Luong Son, because it was a remote area, a place on the narrow and downgrading Highway No 6, where urbanites only stayed to look for forest products when they went on business to the northwest or visited the Hoa Binh thermopower plant.

However, Luong Son has unexpectedly become the “hot spot” in the movement of hunting for beautiful land plots for developing resorts. Big real estate developers, both domestic and foreign, have been flocking to the land area to build resort real estate works.

These include Phoenix Golf Resort, developed by a South Korean investor. To date, this remains the biggest golf course and tourist site in the north. When the golf course was introduced in Luong Son, the land of mountains and beautiful valleys, described as “Hạ Long Bay on land”, just 50 kilometers away from Hanoi surprised many people.

Since then, more and more resort real estate projects have been developed on the land. These include Lam Son resort in Lam Son commune. The project which covers an area of 66 hectares and has the total investment capital of 12 million dollars is hoped to become a big resort in the north.

The Hoa Binh People’s Committee has also cited many other big projects located in the two districts near Hanoi, Ky Son and Luong Son, including the Hoa Binh Minorities’ Culture Village project (140 hectares), Melody Villas (36 hectares) Sunset villas and resorts; Field villas; Vien Nam project.

Hoa Binh – a new destination

A lot of resort real estate projects have been developed in Luong Son, and many developers have begun put the products on sale. Many developers could sell out all the products right on the first sale campaign, even though the real estate market is now gloomy.

The success of resort real estate projects is believed to create a new wave of making investment in Hoa Binh. Hanoians has found a new land area which has great potentials to develop. Meanwhile, Hoa Binh has realized its development potential.

In its development plan, Hoa Binh now pays more attention to develop tourism to exploit its beautiful landscape, cultural value and ecological environment. To date, Hoa Binh’s tourism has not been developed with very few tourism products – the tours to the hydropower plant’s reservoir, Mai Chau mountain village or Kim Boi Hot Springs. However, with the appearance of resort real estate works, Hoa Binh has become more attractive in the eyes of travelers.

Minh Son