In the first four months of the current fiscal year ending July 21, Bank Maskan's loans for construction and purchase of residential units registered a significant growth year-on-year, announced the director of the bank's Department of Planning.
"By July 21, 26.4 trillion rials ($850 million) worth of loans were issued by Bank Maskan to help build and purchase homes, registering a growth of 75% against the previous year," Mohammad Hassan Moradi was reported as saying by IBENA on Monday.
According to Moradi, analysis of data pertaining to the housing sector in Tehran shows that deals were made for 15,000 residential units last month, which signifies a 6.27% growth compared with the same period of last year.
"This is while housing prices increased by 0.1% and 4.4% respectively in comparison with the previous month and the same month of last year," he said. "It must be noted that this increase in prices has not been in line with the inflation rate that basically reflects stability in the housing sector."
Bank Maskan's planning chief said 49% of all home sales last month in Tehran were related to units with a price tag of less than 2.8 billion rials ($90,000) with 53% pertaining to units under 80 square meters.
"This shows that the boom previously witnessed in the upscale northern section of the city has been effectively reversed," he said, "moving toward real demand and covering families with lower incomes."
While these statistics are for Tehran, he says they can be extended to the whole country, "because based on previous experience, the status quo can be extended to all areas of the country".
Moradi also announced that the number of applicants for housing loans has increased in the bank, saying that in the first four months of the current year, the amount of loans allocated to "joint construction of residential units" has experienced a 91% increase compared with the first four months of last year. "These loans registered a respective 88%, 69% and 93% rise in the first, second and third months of the current year in comparison with the same months of last year," he said.
The bank official added that the figure recorded a 103% hike compared with the same month of last year.
Moradi noted that a total of 28,913 residential units were built in the first four months of the year in cooperation with the bank.
"The number of housing units built with the help of Bank Maskan in the first four months of the current year has experienced a 44% rise compared with the same period of last year," he said.
On loans for the purchase of residential units, he said 8.3 trillion rials ($228 million) worth of loans were handed out during the first four months of the previous year, which grew to 13.4 trillion rials ($ 371 million) during the same period of the current year and registered a 65% rise.
Most Tangible Sector
The housing sector which, from a macroeconomic point of view, has attracted 30% of capital formation and 12% of direct employment in the country, is the most important and tangible sector for Iranian households, according to a deputy minister for the Department of Roads and Urban Development.
"During the past two to three years, the housing sector's share of all loans allocated by the banks reached 10-12%," announced Hamed Mazaherian in the joint meeting of roads and urban development officials with Es'haq Jahangiri, the first vice president.
According to Banker.ir, Mazaherian added that the housing sector's share of all liquidity in circulation is 20-30% and the government's share of investment in the sector stands at 0.5-3%.
"If we compare the housing sector with the roads sector, we will see that more than 80% of all investments in the roads sector is handled by the government, while the housing sector is mostly dependent on the private sector," he said.
