TEHRAN- Iran’s housing market experienced a 70-percent rise in prices during the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-December 21, 2019) compared to the same period of time in the past year, Mehr news agency reported on Sunday.

Real estate deals were reportedly down by half during the nine-month period.

Some 50,247 deals were signed during the first nine months of this year, falling from 100,957 deals in the same time span of the previous year.

As previously reported by ILNA, the number of real estate deals in Tehran City increased 137 percent during the ninth Iranian calendar month of Azar (ended on December 21) from its previous month.

As reported, some 9,664 deals were made in the past month, rising from 4,068 deals in its preceding month.

Housing prices also increased in the capital city during the past month, as the prices jumped 6.8 percent on monthly basis while 40 percent compared to the same month in the previous year.

Earlier this month, Deputy Transport and Urban Development Minister for Housing and Construction Affairs Mahmoud Mahmoudzadeh said that the government is planning on launching a national real estate and housing system, aimed at controlling the country’s housing and real estate market by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 19, 2020).

“In order to control and regulate the real estate market, the Ministry of Transport and Urban Development is following four major programs which include taxing vacant houses, completing Mehr housing units, constructing and supplying new housing units through the National Housing Plan and finally setting up a professional real estate and housing system,” the official explained.

According to Mahmoudzadeh, one of the main goals of establishing this system is to identify vacant and unused houses in order to receive tax from the owners. 

“The system will be able to bring back 2.6 million vacant housing units into the real estate market, and consequently affect the rent prices significantly,” he said.

MA/MA