Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 29
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Despite implementing the Mehr housing plan in Iran and promises of officials to provide all Iranian families with homes, statistics show that leasing houses in Iran is on the rise, the Mehr News Agency reported on November 29.
The Mehr housing plan, launched in the administration of Iranian ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had envisaged that homes would be built across the country so that all Iranian families would have their own houses by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2014).
However, the housing market in the country is still in a state of recession.
On November 6, ISNA quoted Transport and Urban Development Minister Abbas Akhoundi as saying that more than 10 trillion rials, about $400 million based on the U.S. official exchange rate of 24,900 rials, has been allocated to complete the semi-finished residential units under the Mehr Housing Plan in Iran.
The administration has been implementing the project in different parts of the country to build millions of residential units and stabilise housing prices.
Under this plan, real estate developers are offered free parcels of land in return for building cheap residential units for first-time buyers, who receive 99-year mortgages for the purchase of the land.
In October, Akhoundi said that some 60 trillion rials, about $2.4 million based on the USD official exchange rate of 24,900 rials is being invested per hour in Iran's building industry.
The building industry is the largest sector of the national economy after the oil one, he added.
Over 2000 new residential buildings are being constructed per day in the country, he said, adding that the building industry accounts for 33 per cent of national economic projects.