This was stated by Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami in a ceremony held on August 18 to mark the official launch of the nationwide online databank, a repository of information on all residential properties across the country, News.mrud.ir, the news portal of Roads and Urban Development Ministry, reported.
The website was first unveiled in February by the minister but needed more input from 16 governmental bodies to become fully operational. It is said that the database is a prerequisite for identifying empty homes and applying vacancy tax.
The launch of the National Property and Housing Database comes as government officials are waiting for the parliament’s vacancy tax bill to become law, which is in fact the revised version of Article 54 of Direct Tax Code and needs the Guardians Council’s final approval.
Last week, the council—a watchdog that ensures laws are in line with the Iranian Constitution and Islamic law—found flaws in the various provisions of the vacancy tax bill and sent it back to the parliamentarians.
"Setting up the National Property and Housing Database was not only a legal duty, but also a necessity for planning and policymaking in the housing market based on reliable information in order to dam up the flood of capital to the housing market and imprisonment of assets in this economic sector," Eslami said.
“As of today (Tuesday), text messages will be sent to the owners of 2.7 million empty homes and then their information will be put at the Iranian National Tax Administration’s disposal for further measures.”
Eslami said owners of empty homes or unfinished housing projects are invited to offer their properties to the market via the National Housing Initiative to help increase the supply of homes and the ministry, in return, will grant them land of high economic value in urban areas for construction projects.
Mahmoud Mahmoudzadeh, the head of the housing division of Roads and Urban Development Ministry, who was also present at the ceremony, said the information of over 13.4 million residential properties have been gathered in the first phase of identifying homes.
“These homes account for 40-45% of the country’s total residential properties owned by 9.3 million real and legal entities. Our data show 2.7 million households have more than one homes. You can also see the names of 1,500 legal entities on this list,” he said.
“Homes in the country are registered in the names of 91 million national ID code holders. This figure is bigger than the country’s population because a proportion of them belongs to deceased persons and their ownership transfer process is not yet complete.”
Mahmoudzadeh noted that close to 73,000 homes are owned by people younger than 18 years.
“The highest number of residential properties belongs to an individual with 605 homes. We have also found a legal entity that owns 23,800 residential units. The ministry will send 1.5 million text messages to the owners of more than one home within the next 10 days. They need to log on the National Property and Housing Database and submit the data of their properties [whether it is rented or empty]. The first list of empty homes will be sent to INTA next [Iranian] month [ending Sept. 21],” he said.
“We have witnessed a 30% increase in supply of homes to the market since the unveiling of the database, indicating that it has created a successful psychological atmosphere.”
Mahmoudzadeh said the National Coronavirus Headquarters has ordered the registration of all deals on the websites of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, which statistics will be accessible to all members of the public and experts.
Referring to the fact that reports on Tehran home deals and prices are not fully reflective of the country’s housing market, the official said the previous approach would have unfavorable psychological impacts on the country’s housing market, stressing that the publication of reports on the housing market will continue but with greater accuracy, Fars News Agency reported.
Tehran Housing Market in Review
Latest data published by the Central Bank of Iran show a total of 14,047 homes were sold in the capital during the fourth month of the current fiscal year (June 21-July 21), registering a 30.3% rise compared with the preceding month.
They showed a year-on-year growth of 193.3% compared with the 4,790 deals in the corresponding month of last year.
The average price of each square meter of a residential property in Tehran stood at 209.09 million rials ($911) during the month under review, showing a surge of 56.6% over last year’s same month as average prices were registered at 133.51 million rials ($582).
Home prices in the capital city increased by 10.4% compared to 189.48 million rials ($826) in the third month of the current year.
The CBI data also show that during the month ending July 21, newly-built residential properties up to five years old constituted the highest proportion of deals at 38.6% (or 5,418 deals), down by 1.6 percentage points compared with the same month of last year.
The lost share was added to homes six to 10 years old and those above 15 years. Homes with a lifespan of six to 10 years and 16 to 20 years accounted for 19.3% and 17% of total deals respectively.
The share of deals involving homes that were 11 to 15 years old decreased from 13.6% of the total deals in last year’s same month to 13% this year. Homes above 20 years posted a share of 12.2% of total deals, compared with 12% of the same month of last year.
The distribution of dealt properties shows that among Tehran's 22 districts, District 5 grabbed the highest share of total deals at 14.9%. It was followed by districts 4 and 2 with a respective share of 8.7% and 8.6%.
All-in-all, 10 districts (five, four, two, 10, 14, seven, one, eight, three and 15) grabbed the lion's share of the deals at 73.1% with the remaining 12 districts holding a 26.9% share.
Among Tehran's 22 districts, District 1 registered the highest average home price of 453 million rials ($1,975) per square meter. District 18 offered the capital city's cheapest homes with an average per-square meter price of 96.3 million rials ($419). The aforesaid numbers show a respective increase of 51.8% and 58.2% YOY.
Residential units with an average price range of 140 million rials ($610) to 160 million rials ($697) per square meter were the most popular in Tehran during the Iranian month under review, as they grabbed a 9.7% share of all deals. They were followed by units priced at 120 million rials ($523) to 140 million rials ($610) per square meter with a share of 9.5% and homes priced at 100 million rials ($436) to 120 million rials ($523) per square meter with a share of 8.8%.
From the total number of deals, 56.4% belonged to homes cheaper than the average per-square meter price of the city (i.e. 209.1 million rials or $911).
Residential units with a floor area of 50-60 square meters registered the highest number of sales with a 14.2% share of total deals.
Units with an area of 60-70 square meters and 70-80 square meters ranked second and third with shares of 14% and 11.6%, respectively. All-in-all, residential properties with an area of under 80 square meters had a 52.2% share of total deals.
CBI data further show that Tehran’s homes worth between 6 billion rials ($26,166) and 8.5 billion rials ($37,069) were the most popular with a 14.2% share of total deals. These were followed by homes with a price tag of between 3.5 billion rials ($15,263) and six billion rials ($26,166) and those priced at 8.5 billion rials ($37,069) and 11 billion rials ($47,972) with a share of 11.5% and 10.1% of total deals, respectively.
Collectively, homes valued under 16 billion rials ($69,777) had a 54.3% share of total home deals in Tehran during the fourth month of the current year.
During the four months of the current Iranian year that started on March 20, the number of home deals finalized in Tehran totaled 37,378, which shows a 42% rise year-on-year.
In the same period, the average price of each square meter of a home in the capital stood at 180.31 million rials ($786), signaling a YOY surge of 42.6% compared with the four months of last year.
The central regulator also reports changes to tenancy prices in the capital city and across the urban areas.
According to CBI, the price of rented residential units in Tehran and across urban areas increased by 27.6% and 31% respectively during the fourth month of the current year compared with the similar month of last year.