Iran's 2nd Real-Estate Investment Trust Launched

EghtesaadOnline: The Iranian government on Saturday inaugurated the country’s second real-estate investment trust (REIT) called Narvan in Tehran through the Maskan Investment Group, the parent company of Bank Maskan, the agent bank of the housing sector.

News ID: ۷۸۳۰۴۳

24 June 2018

Mohamamd Reza Amini, MIG’s chief executive, announced the second REIT’s launch on Sunday in a ceremony held to inaugurate the building financed by its first REIT.

According to HIBNA, the official news outlet of the lender, the project is a 144-unit residential building that has already sold 91 units.

“The return rate of investments in this project is 17%, but we predict that the rate will reach 18% when the other residential units are sold,” Financial Tribune quoted him as saying.

Amini promised that MIG will guarantee the quality of the project for five years, as the group aims to tap into the potential of REITS as part of its macro long-term goals.

“We will use the capacities of the capital market as part of bigger projects,” he said, adding that another 234-unit building in Shahr-e-Rey and a 96-unit building in Tabriz are being built through Narvan with a collective capital of 770 billion rials ($18,210).

“We have planned at MIG to finance at least 1,000 residential units a year through REITS, if we manage to meet the requirements of the trusts,” Amini said.

Iran’s first-ever REIT was officially inaugurated in mid-December when the Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi launched Nasim Tower, the first housing project in Iran to be financed by a REIT, also called Nasim.

Three years in the making, the project was the first initiative to tap the capital market as its main source of funding. The government is pursuing this method of finance to boost the housing sector that was mired in a years-long recession and has only recently come out of it.