Iran: First-Time Buyers Rush to Housing Market

More than 40,000 Housing Saving Accounts have been opened in the third quarter  of the current fiscal year to Dec. 21 to mark a whopping jump of 57.6% compared with the same period of last year.

According to Bank Maskan’s news website, during each month of the previous Iranian year (ended March 20, 2017), the average number of  loan applicants stood at 12,000 to 15,000, which means about 500 people have opened an account as first-time homebuyers.

This is while in the three months to Dec. 21, the number of new monthly applicants has surpassed 20,000, indicating that the queue for cheap home loans is getting 800 people longer each day.

Bank Maskan is the agent bank of the housing sector and the organizer of Housing Saving Accounts launched on June 2015, to provide housing loans for first-time home buyers and requires applicants to make an initial deposit and wait for a year to 18 months to become eligible for the loan.

During the Iranian month of Mehr that ended Oct. 22, the total number of new entrants in the mortgage scheme reached 20,810.

More than 3,700 of the aforementioned applicants reside in small cities with a population of less than 200,000. The number of first-time homebuyer applicants in Tehran during the month stood around 6,000 while more than 11,000 accounts were opened in other major cities with a population of more than 200,000.

This is while the number of new applicants during the following month to Nov. 21 stood at 20,458. Most of the applicants were from big cities (plus-200,000 population) as their number exceeded 10,000.

Applicants from small cities accounted for 15% of the entire figure, with 3,644 new applicants across the country during the aforementioned month.  The number of first-time homebuyer applicants in Tehran during the Iranian month of Aban to Nov. 21 reached 10,660.

According to Bank Maskan’s Public Relations Department, the maturity time of loans for many applicants has arrived and the bank is doling out about 150 loans each day. The average number of paid loans during each month of the third quarter exceeded 3,700.

This figure during the first month of Q3 stood at 3,150 while it experienced a slight increase during the following month to reach 3,750.

In Tehran and other big and small cities, the amount of such loans has been set at 800, 600 and 400 million rials respectively ($25,600, $19,200 and $12,800).

Newlyweds applying for the loan will each be eligible to receive 800 million rials, which will amount to a total of 1.6 billion rials ($51,200).