For the second consecutive winter, the housing market is plagued by slowdown as stagnation is still seen in trades and many builders or property owners can hardly find a customer for their real estate, based on an Eghtesadnews report on Sunday.
During the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (which started March 21, 2014), the housing market did not experience the expected boom and many owners have not been able to sell their property for its nominal value.
According to statistics released by the union of Tehran real estate consultants, although the property trade volume in the current year has slightly grown compared with the previous Iranian year, which ended March 20, 2014, the market is still in a slump.
The sharp slowdown in the housing sector during the past two years has negatively affected the construction sector. Official data given by the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) show that in spring (March 21-June 21), the Tehran Municipality issued 50.5% less building permits than they did during the same season a year earlier.
Based on the data, over 94% of the permits were issued for buildings with five stories or more. As much as 39.6% of the permits were issued for buildings with steel structures while 60.3% were for those with concrete structures.
With a population growth rate of 1.3%, Iran has during recent years seen a growing demand for houses as one or two-storey buildings were turned into five or six-storey buildings with two or more than two units on each floor.
Large residential complexes have emerged in the suburbs of big cities – many of them built by large engineering companies, although hundreds of thousands of buildings have been pulled down and turned into taller apartments by ordinary builders within big cities.
