Housing Expert Says Resources Should Be Shifted to Supply Side

Loans are generally insufficient to plug housing affordability gaps, so a more sustainable solution is to tackle the factors that make costs so prohibitively high in the first place, Gholamreza Salami, a housing expert says. 
A translation of his article published in the Persian economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad follows: 
As per the decision of Money and Credit Council, a top financial decision-making body with the Central Bank of Iran, the ceiling on home loans will increase twofold to help resolve the housing problem of people, particularly first-time homebuyers. 
However, a simple analysis shows that such decisions not only fail to solve the seemingly intractable housing problem, but also create more knots in the already tangled lives of people who are desperate for a roof over their heads. 
As a general rule of thumb, taking out home loans, which require the borrower to make long-term deposits, usually prove counterproductive in countries with chronic inflation. In other words, loan applicants are bound to suffer more losses as time passes. This has happened several times in Iran and is likely to happen in the future, as the current trend persists.