TEHRAN, Iran, April 20
Trend:
Iran's housing market is facing transaction issues due to Coronavirus spread, said a housing expert.
Mehdi Soltani Mohammadi discussed the housing market situation during coronavirus outbreak and closure of many businesses in an interview with Trend.
"The processes of buying and renting houses slowed down mainly to three reasons. The first and important one is the Coronavirus spread. The owners of many houses listed for sale or rent, are not interested to let others inside to prevent virus spread, while customers are not eager to visit various locations and houses," Mohammadi said.
"The second reason is that number sales and rents is traditionally low during the first month of Iranian year from March 20 to April 19. Currently, the market is in state of uncertainty due to the situation in the country's condition. It is not clear how the prices would change, so sellers prefer to stop offering houses and customers are not inclined to buy," he added.
"In terms of renting houses, tenants and owners have stopped interaction that has reduced volume of trades in the market, and closure of real estate agencies is another reason," the expert said.
"The forecast for housing market in current Iranian year [began March 20, 2020] is that prices will rise since there are expectations for further inflation situation caused by closures and economic problems." he said. "While people are not very keen on investing their capital in long-term deposit, some are investing in the stock market. The reports show rise of trading by 30 percent in stock market in past two months. Another part of capital investment usually goes toward housing market since it is traditionally considered as less shaky during inflation."
"Some analyses predict house price would increase in the current Iranian year, since house availability have declined in past two years, particularly in Tehran. As expected, this trend will continue," he said.
"The prices will increase, as the price of steel and other construction materials has grown," he said adding that considering the government strict regulations on taxes for empty houses, it is unlikely that individuals will invest in empty houses only to sell them with at a higher price, so it is expected that these houses will be used.
"The statistics from previous years show some have worked in house construction and kept them empty to sell it in a profitable opportunity the issue needs more studies and reviews," Mohammadi said.
"However, the experience has shown that these systems can not have much effect over registering empty houses, since the owners use various methods to evade taxes," he said.
"Thus, it is possible that a remarkable number of empty houses will affect the prices in the market, since the expectations are not logical," he added.