Page 68 - IRANRptSep22

Iran identifies 1.6mn vacant homes, prepares to force properties on to market
Iran’s economy ministry looks to raise $600mn from property auctions
country’s national currency.
Towards 1.6mn suspected empty homes have been identified across Iran, Tasnim News Agency on April 27 reported Parvaneh Aslani, director general of the housing economics office of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, as saying.
Officials confronted by Iranians who cannot get a foot on the property ladder due to soaring house prices and the severely weakened Iranian rial (IRR) are looking to force some of these homes on to the market. Introduced regulations mean homeowners who refuse to rent a vacant home for at least a one-year period must pay half an annual rent in the form of a tax fine. Many Iranians hold on to empty property as an investment, believing that they stand to profit more from potential sales during better economic times.
Aslani reportedly said that she expected the country’s tax office, armed with the list compiled from its search for empty properties, would now start implementing fines against owners.
A previous vice president of the National Tax Administration, Ghassem Panahi, once announced that a long-awaited tax on vacant homes in Tehran and other major cities would be brought in by March 21, 2017, but that deadline was missed as vested interests made efforts to dodge the tax.
The Raisi government, in power since last year, has begun a new round of mass homebuilding in an effort at addressing the stark housing shortage.
The price of each square metre of land in Tehran, meanwhile, increased from Iranian rial (IRR) 300mn ($1,067 at the free market exchange rate) in August last year to over IRR350mn in March. An inability to pay such prices has forced many city inhabitants to move to faraway satellite towns, causing knock-on traffic problems when they commute to work or journey to the city for other reasons.
Around 2,500 residential and commercial properties with an officially estimated value of approximately $600mn are to be auctioned by Iran’s economy ministry in a bid to raise funds for the government, Tehran’s Financial Tribune has reported.
Some of the property assets, dating from before Iran’s 1979 revolution, are available because of mergers between ministries over the years that left office space free. In central Tehran there are such buildings that have been left empty for decades. Only in the past decade have there been significant sales of abandoned buildings of this type to private developers. The developers mostly look to turn them into luxury flats or business centres.
“These properties have been recognised as excess and are ready for sale, and have all the legal ownership documents,” Fateme Dadgar, a spokeswoman for the economy ministry was quoted as saying by news portal shada.ir, in reference to all the assets to be auctioned.
The economy ministry has plans to raise close to Iranian rial (IRR) 1,000tn ($3.5bn at the free market exchange rate) in all from property sales nationwide and equity to be sold on the stock market, the official added.
However, successive Iranian governments have struggled to offload old assets to the private sector due to overpricing of estate. According to the Supreme Audit Office, both the former Rouhani government, which was in power for two terms until the summer of this year, and the Raisi administration, which came into office in August, have struggled in selling off assets, with government departments unwilling to play ball.
68 IRAN Country Report September 2022 www.intellinews.com