Azerbaijan, Baku, Jun.2/ Trend F.Karimov/
Over 340,000 deals for buying or renting houses were inked in Iran since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21) and the first week of the third calendar month (May 28), a triple rise compared to the same period in the previous year, ISNA reported.
During the same period last year, some 101,000 deals were inked. eleven percent of the deals were related to May 22-28 period.
The highest rate of the deals was related to Tehran Province, with 81,229 deals, which was 12,000 deals more year on year.
Since autumn 2011, real estate prices in Iran's major cities, and especially in Tehran, have skyrocketed, turning developers into overnight millionaires.
Part of the increase is due to a rise in the price of housing materials and land, which was triggered by the cut in fuel subsidies and the sharp drop in the exchange rate for the rial in relation to foreign currency.
Some economists say that the huge level of liquidity, which has reached 346 billion dollars during the two terms of the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is the main reason for the rise in housing prices. However, it seems that the psychological atmosphere created by developers and real estate agents is also at least partly to blame for the current state of affairs.
Tehran Renovation Organization Director Alireza Jafari has said that the price of housing in Tehran has increased more than 40 percent in comparison to the previous Iranian calendar year, which ran from March 2011 to March 2012.