Real-Estate Database to Go Online by March 2018

A previously-promised nationwide online database of all residential units across the country is planned to become operational by the end of the current fiscal year (March 20, 2018), the head of Housing Economy Department at the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development announced.

"The database must be strengthened and completed step by step so that its result can become more accurate gradually," Ali Chegini was also quoted as saying by the official news outlet of the ministry.

In July 2016, Chegini had announced that such a database will contain information on all residential units and homeowners across the country.

It would help the ministry identify the number of houses owned by each person while acting as a platform for the government to levy taxes on vacant homes.

“The data would be handed to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance and is designed to help prevent tax evasion,” he explained.

While the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development plans to complete the database at the beginning of next year, the official said an exact date cannot be provided.

However, he predicted that it would take a year for it to be completed.

But a preliminary version of it is to go online sooner. As the official said, "The early use of the database will begin from the summer of this year and we will provide online access to Iran National Tax Administration and the Economy Ministry for them to be able to use it in implementing the law of direct taxes."

The ministry is in charge of devising the database and has been working on it concurrently with a number of other affiliate organizations and entities inside and outside of the administration.

According to Chegini, a company active in informatics services is handling the software system of the database under the supervision of the ministry.

Financing Housing Sector

In separate remarks, the official stressed the role of Bank Maskan, the agent bank of the housing sector, as the leader of providing instruments for financing the sector in light of its expertise.

He also pointed to the blueprint of the bank for the next four years, noting that realizing its goals would entail a clear roadmap that outlines the major strategies and policies of the lender during the second tenure of President Hassan Rouhani in office.

"The current blueprint requires establishing and completing a variety of executive programs within the framework of the cluster formation ruling over each general policy," he told the Public Relations Department of Bank Maskan.

Chegini stressed that the bank's role in improving the system of financing the housing sector can also lend a hand to the private sector by providing suitable grounds for implementing various plans.

Railroad Investment

Meanwhile, banking executives and experts in roads and transportation attended a conference focused on financing railroad companies in which the director of Bank Maskan Finance Group, the parent company of Bank Maskan, said the company will enter the market of financing railroads.

"In light of the corrections made in the statute of the BMF Group and obtaining the permits to become active in financing the transportation sector, as well as the recession in the real-estate market, the group deems it necessary to enter this sector in the current year," Mohsen Fazelian was also quoted as saying by the official website of the bank.

According to estimates from this transportation sector i.e. building wagons and railroads, the sector is worth more than 30 trillion rials ($800 million), which the official branded "significant in its own right".

Fazelian added that developing the suburban and urban railroad networks has been defined as a government priority and will be followed up in the next four years.