Due to several factors including a rise in real estate deals and a notable flow of liquidity into the housing market, long-term stability in the housing sector is almost a certainty, declared the deputy minister of roads and urban development on Tuesday.
"At the moment, we can guarantee that the housing market is stable," said Hamed Mazaherian at a press briefing ahead of the 16th Conference on Housing Development Policy. The conference is scheduled to run from October 3-4.
“Furthermore, the average price of one square meter of a residential unit increased 8.6% -- in line with the inflation rate.”
The combined effect of the statistics pertaining to the previous months attests to the market’s ongoing positive trend, Mazaheri said, noting that the long-ailing sector is slowly and gradually getting out of recession. “We have the end of the recession era in sight and hope that this will send a signal to investors, in turn increasing investments and construction.”
All this will help ensure a stable market in the long run, he added.
Promoting the culture of buying homes through down payments and a subsequent expansion of the market is the most important policy currently pursued by the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, said Mazaherian.
“It was our hope that moving with global trends, we could reach out to every Iranian citizen, informing them of what tools they can utilize to become homeowners,” he added. “President Rouhani’s government attaches special importance to the purchase of homes in a way that honors a culture of saving, something which has been also welcomed by the public.”
The deputy minister pointed to the Housing Savings Account, saying more than 67,000 people have opened accounts with the scheme which amounts to 14 trillion rials ($448.2 million), indicating that the scheme is indeed popular among homebuyers.
Applicants enrolling in the Housing Savings Account have to make an initial deposit and wait for a year to be eligible for the mortgage. The scheme was devised to promote home ownership for first-time buyers.
In line with the promotion of the notion of home buying through savings, the official pointed to the recent decrease of the lending rates pertaining to the Housing Savings Account mortgages. President Rouhani on Monday announced that the scheme’s lending rates were lowered to single figures for the first time, being fixed at 8% for homes purchased in distressed urban areas and 9.5% for the non-distressed urban areas. “This will bring with it the promise that every Iranian citizen can be a homeowner by way of saving,” Mazaherian concluded.
