Page 52 - IRANRptAug20

9.1.9​Construction & property sector news
The sale of several properties owned by the Iranian state in Albania, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has been proposed in a letter sent to the Rouhani cabinet by Iran’s foreign ministry, according to details published by​ Cabinetoffice.ir​.
The properties include apartments, embassy buildings and land. Some of the properties are said to be in the way of redevelopment plans drawn up by the host cities. Unofficially, however, social media users are pointing to the empty coffers of the foreign ministry as the real reason for the sales appetite, with Iran struggling economically given the US sanctions throttling its economy. According to the foreign ministry, two buildings belonging to the Iranian embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan are within the scope of the city’s ‘urban development plan’. Also, a piece of land belonging to the Iranian embassy in Tirana, Albania, initially purchased for the construction of the embassy's residence, is said to be unsuitable for the purpose, while five apartments owned by Iran’s mission in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, are on the ministry's for sale list.
Iran has dozens of embassies globally, with the vast majority of prime properties purchased during the time of the last Shah prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In recent years, Iran has sought to offload properties including valuable assets in London's Kensington district, where a proposed futuristic-looking Iranian embassy was rejected by planners and objected to by Prince Charles. Americans claiming to be victims of Iranian state-sponsored terrorism—with such claims typically made in the US courts even when the terrorist atrocity has no provable direct relation to Iran—have also sought to achieve the sale of Iranian state-owned properties abroad. US plaintiffs have attempted to obtain legal orders making them cashable assets from which compensation payments can be drawn.
The average price for a square metre of a residential unit in Tehran stood at Iranian rial (IRR) 127mn ($3,016 at the official exchange rate, $1,123 at the free market rate) at the end of the Persian calendar month of Mehr (ended October 22), marking 0.4% m/m and 47.7% y/y increases, ILNA has reported citing Central Bank of Iran (CBI) data.
The CBI surveys the property market via its online residential sales system which logs sales on the national level. The severe devaluation of the rial together with soaring inflation in the past year and a half since the US reintroduced heavy sanctions against Tehran has wrought some havoc with Iran’s property market.
Also according to the official data, the total amount of residential unit transactions in the Iranian capital of 15.2mn people in Mehr reached 3,400, up 22.0% m/m and down 63.7% y/y.
District 1, consisting of uptown neighbourhoods, had an average price of IRR269.6mn per sqm, while District 2, also uptown, had an average price of IRR219.9mn per sqm.
At the other end of the scale is District 18. It appears to now be the cheapest area in Tehran with an average per sqm value of IRR55.2mn. District 19 was a little more expensive at IRR61.75mn.
The most sales in the cited calendar month were seen in moderately priced District 5, which accounted for 15.1% of all sales. It was followed by Districts 2 and 4 with 9.1% and 7.9% shares of sales, respectively.
52​ IRAN Country Report August 2020 www.intellinews.com