Investigating the situation of the housing market in the first half of the year / fuss over nothing! – Tejarat News
According to Tejarat News, the housing market entered the new year while the publication of statistics related to this sector was completely censored by the government since the beginning of the winter of 1401. People no longer had accurate information about the rate of rent and housing price inflation, but suddenly, especially in the metropolis of Tehran, they felt its heavy burden.
From the very beginning, housing experts called this year a difficult year for tenants; The prediction, of course, came true. Most of the tenants whose house contracts expired in the first months of the year faced strange figures for the renewal of the contract, which made it impossible for them to live in that house the following year, while they could not buy a suitable unit with their previous budget. to find a place to live
Therefore, a large number of tenants were forced to migrate to lower areas or the outskirts of the city, while their well-being was directly affected.
Reverse migration from Tehran
It was at this point that experts raised the risk of reverse migration from Tehran to new cities. They believed that these forced migrations will affect the housing prices in these areas, disrupt the demographic mix, create traffic on the roads leading to Tehran, and force many people to go to work and study every day. spend many hours commuting.
This incident, plus the low welfare and employment facilities in new cities, has made these areas become a dormitory for its residents.
Alireza Jafari, Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development and Managing Director of New City Development Company, confirmed this fact and said: We are facing some backwardness in the establishment of new cities and the success rate in these cities, and these cities have turned into dormitories these days. .
He had also stated that the existential philosophy of new cities was to create high-quality and attractive settlements to attract the population of mother cities in the satellite areas of existing cities. But the growth of the cost of living in the mother cities and metropolises caused new cities to become settlements that are sometimes referred to as second-tier settlements.
Government support package
The noise caused by this situation caused the government to look for a way, even though it appears, to put order in the chaotic situation of the housing and rental market at the beginning of the trading season. Therefore, it prepared new policies and introduced a new support package to support tenants.
These policies included a tax on vacant homes, monitoring contracts, and a tax on repeat transactions. The government thought that with these measures it could rush to the aid of tenants who were troubled by the fear of homelessness, but over time it became clear that the government’s policies in the housing market were nothing more than a show maneuver.
Increase housing loan and deposit
The next step of the government to improve the situation of the tenants was to announce an increase in housing deposit loans up to 200 million tomans in Tehran. Based on this, the applicants who were eligible for a loan of 100 million tomans until last year could receive twice the previous amount of the facility.
According to housing activists, increasing the ceiling of this loan could not be a solution to a large extent. Because the tenants will not be able to get the loan again until they settle their previous loan. Also, in the meantime, it was not possible for everyone to pay its installments despite the increase in the amount.
Of course, this increase in the facility ceiling, which at the same time affected the atmosphere in the market for a while, still remains unchanged after a few months, and the comprehensive system of housing support projects shows that the loan ceiling is the same as before.
Increasing the loan amount of the National Housing Movement
Another news that circulated in the housing market in the middle of spring was the increase of the National Housing Movement’s loan limit to 550 million tomans. Before this, the ceiling of the National Housing Movement facility was 450 million tomans, and some regions paid less than this ceiling.
The government claimed that this issue would be beneficial to the applicants and would ultimately put the national housing in better conditions; An action that can finally move the wheel of housing production in the country, but the arrow of this government initiative also hit the stone after a short period of time. Because the banks announced lack of credit and field observations also showed that most of the branches are not willing to pay the facilities.
On the other hand, the government itself realized that the country’s economy is not able to provide this liquidity and finally reduced its statistical population.
In this way, the central bank announced that only the supporting projects are subject to the increase in the facility ceiling of this plan; This means that urban and rural self-owned projects are not subject to the increase of the ceiling and the reduction of the interest rate of the mentioned facilities. In the self-ownership method, land owners use the National Housing Movement loan for construction – both mass and normal – on their own land.
Recession in the housing market
The sharp decrease in people’s purchasing power and the introduction of issues such as capital gains tax over time until the arrival of summer caused consumers and investors to leave the market and the market entered its recession phase; The situation continues until now and real estate consultants say that the deals have been blocked for months.
Of course, the role of the government and its psychological game in this field cannot be ignored; Raeesi’s cabinet thought that by preventing the increase in prices and the dominance of stagnation on the market, it could create a relative peace in this field.
Mansour Ghaibi, a housing expert, told Tejarat News: “A vivid example of psychological management in the field of housing economics is the announcement of a decrease in property prices at the beginning of 1402 by the government. In this way, the government officials intend to bring down the price by bringing the housing sector into recession; An action that has caused thousands of billions of Tomans of capital to face the lack of proper circulation in terms of financial resources, causing losses to the people and the government itself.
Ghaibi explained: “At one end of this psychological game, there are traders and economic investors who can impose the psychological burden of price increases on the society, including in the housing sector. By stimulating the effective factors, especially the price of currency, dollar, coin and gold, they increase the false price of housing.
Price reduction in the housing market
Along with the stagnation in housing market transactions and the lack of applicants for the submitted files, a new thing happened in the market; Property owners who needed their capital in a short period of time had to give a percentage discount on the price of their property, and as a result, after several months of not knowing about the price trend in the housing market, some relevant officials announced that the price of housing has experienced a few percent reduction.
The 13th government considers this reduction process as an achievement for itself, but experts believe that if this claim is true, the price reduction that originated from the recession will again be on an upward trajectory when the transactions start again.
On the other hand, this amount of price drop is a small drop against the huge flood of housing price increase in recent years.
Housing inflation in the first 6 months of the year
As it was said, the statistics related to the developments of the housing market have not been published since last year and following the excitement caused by the excessive price increase, but part of the statistics that Iran Statistics Center publishes every month on the consumer price index has shown that from the beginning 1402 until the end of August this year, housing inflation has gone through an increasing trend.
In the meantime, August experienced a 3.3 percent inflation growth and stagnant price increases in the first 6 months of the year. This is while the officials of the housing sector claim that the price of housing has experienced a downward trend since the beginning of the summer of this year, and they consider this issue as one of their achievements in the housing sector.
Experts have criticized this claim since its inception. They believe that this price reduction is only due to the stagnation prevailing in the market and once the prosperity returns to the market, the price growth will also return. On the other hand, the amount of price reduction during this period is very small compared to the price increase experienced by housing in recent years.
The retreat of the government in front of mass builders
This summer included another event in the field of housing; After two years, the government finally accepted its failure in the construction of National Housing Movement units, and the Minister of Roads and Urban Development tried to make promises in a meeting with mass builders to solve their problems.
Hassan Mohtsham, a member of the board of directors of the Association of Mass Builders of Tehran Province, told Tejarat News about this meeting and facilitating the entry of mass builders into the National Housing Movement project: “Some mass builders have participated in the National Housing Movement project before and signed contracts, but the contracts They were not able to work smoothly and cope with it. Now, by raising these problems and solving them, it is natural that if positive measures are taken and they are solved, mass builders will enter the project of the National Housing Movement, and their entry can set this huge national project in motion. This depends on the policies of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.”
He has also stated: “If these problems are resolved, we hope that major contracts will be signed with mass producers and it will take an operational form, so that we hope that there will be a significant number of units for operation next year.”
At the beginning of the work, the government had offered a low figure to the mass builders for the construction of these units, and therefore they had lost their desire to enter the National Housing Movement project. Of course, it has not yet been fully determined whether the government will fulfill its promises and mass builders will be eager to build national housing units or not.
The promise of Khandozi for the national housing movement
In addition to the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, Ehsan Khandozi, the Minister of Economy, also made a new promise in the second half of July to improve the process of building National Housing Movement units.
At that time, the Ministry of Economy announced the preparation of a new proposal package and presenting it to the Money and Credit Council. The news agencies wrote about this, this action of the Ministry of Economy can be a new way to finance the National Housing Movement project.
One of these other measures in this field was to reduce the time for obtaining building permits, the long duration of which was considered an obstacle to the construction of national housing units.
Khandozi also announced the new proposal of this ministry to finance the national housing and said: it seems that there will be problems for the housing bank due to the completion of its obligations in the national housing movement; For this reason, in the Money and Credit Council, we raised the issue that it is possible to adopt a way to maintain the central bank’s liquidity control policy and consider a special path for financing housing projects.
He stated: In the sense that you can make sure that when you give a facility, that money does not sit in an intermediary account for a few months so that other work can be done with it and later, for example, it is paid to the contractor, but in line with the stated goal of consumption. will be
Khandozi also explained in this regard: If Housing Bank can make the granted facility reach the final beneficiary by any method, be it supply chain or any other method, I am very optimistic that we can get a special license this year for This bank is in the field of national housing movement projects.
Now, after two years of the 13th government, and while the lack of supply and stagnation of construction is one of the main problems of the real estate market, not even one national housing unit has been delivered, and the promises made by the Ministry of Roads, Urban Development and Economy should be seen. In the last one to two months, they have raised how practical it will be and what effect it will have on the construction of the units.
The performance of banks in the field of payment of housing facilities
Another prominent issue in the housing market since the beginning of 1402 is the refusal of banks to pay facilities related to the housing sector. In the first 6 months of this year, like the last two years, the banks did not show their willingness to pay the housing sector facilities. Considering the state of the housing market, they now prefer to spend their resources on projects that have a shorter repayment period and their final profit is consistent with the amount of money invested.
The report that the Central Bank published on the performance of the banks regarding the payment of the third child’s mortgage at the beginning of September this year is proof of this. According to this report, five Mellat Banks, Saderat, Trade, Housing, and Post Bank were required to pay 200 million Tomans of loans for the third child, but Mellat Bank provided facilities to only five applicants and Post Bank has only paid 12 loans for the third child. .
Three other banks are in the next ranks; Trade 28, housing 109 and export 193 loan facilities have been given to households without housing.
The total payment of these banks amounts to 67 billion 400 million Tomans and this is while the statistics show that the budget of the youth law is 900 billion Tomans. Therefore, banks have used less than eight percent of the total budget for this plan.
As can be seen from the review of the first 6 months of the real estate market in 1402, the housing of this abandoned and damaged part of the economy is not in a good condition, and this condition will not only not improve with unfounded promises and without expertise, but in some cases it will also suffer more damage.
It seems that the time has come to do a proper study on the problems related to the housing market and, taking into account the country’s financial resources, proper planning in terms of prices, transactions and the construction of supportive housing.