Home Loan Applicants Reach 260,000

Roads and Urban Development Minister Abbas Akhoundi has announced that 260,000 people have so far applied for home loans by opening Housing Saving Accounts, which indicates that the scheme has met with good response.  

Akhoundi announced that home loan applicants, whose deposits have reached the one-year maturity period, will gradually receive their credits and enter the market.

“In order to improve and extend home loans, we have suggested a few measures to the government to facilitate the allocation of loans, which are currently under negotiation,” Akhoundi was also quoted as saying by the ministry’s official website.

The Housing Savings Account, launched in June 2015 for the first time, is a government scheme spearheaded by Bank Maskan–the agent bank of the housing sector–that asks applicants, mainly first-time homebuyers, to make a deposit and wait for a year to receive facilities.

The minister encouraged Iranians to benefit from these loans, as the interest rates for residents of distressed urban areas and informal settlements, along with first-time homebuyers, have been set at 8%.When the Housing Saving Account scheme was first launched, interest rate of the loans were set at 14% which in February 2017 was reduced to 9.5% in general cases and 8% for those who wanted to buy a house in distressed areas.

“This scheme is beneficial both for the people and the country’s economy, as families can be sure that they will receive a guaranteed loan with good interest rates six times the amount of their deposits. And it is good for the economy since the bank’s resources will be provided from people’s deposits and its dependency on the government’s budget will significantly drop,” he added. Akhoundi stressed that in order to ensure that the bank will not face any capital shortage in allocating the loans, the ministry aims to add another 50 trillion rials ($1.33 billion) to its capital, which will definitely happen in the foreseeable future.