An Economic Newspaper: The Government is Misusing the 'National Housing Fund'

An economic newspaper published in Tehran reported on the performance of the 'National Housing Fund' and stated that the fund has primarily served government-ordered projects, namely 'government housing construction.' The newspaper 'Donya-e-Eqtesad' wrote that the National Housing Fund was established according to law and was supposed to receive 'government tax revenues from the housing sector' as its resources. The report emphasized that due to severe weaknesses in tax policies, only 107 billion tomans were collected from the approved 12 trillion tomans in the 2023 budget; 'almost nothing, and thus, sustainable resources have not yet been injected into the fund.' The report also mentioned that instead of achieving 'rent subsidies' and 'housing purchase facilities for the target community' and 'helping to establish a secondary mortgage market,' the fund has mainly been at the service of government-ordered projects, namely 'government housing construction.' Meanwhile, with the persistence of old problems and the emergence of a crisis in the rental sector, the news agency 'Mehr' reported on May 1 that 'tenants have become disoriented.' This news agency emphasized that Ebrahim Raisi promised to build 4 million housing units in the first four years of the thirteenth government during his electoral debate, which many economic experts deemed unrealistic from the outset. Mehr news agency pointed to the government's failure in this sector and noted that the publication of statistics and field studies showed that government policies cannot resolve the country's macroeconomic problems in the long term. According to this report, the housing rental market under Raisi's government has recorded the highest rental price growth, and housing experts believe this trend will continue. Mehr news agency described the critical conditions of renters, stating that a 110 square meter two-bedroom apartment in District 16 of Tehran's Nazariabad neighborhood can be rented for a deposit of 500 million tomans and a monthly rent of 20 million tomans. An economic journalist related to this issue told VOA that this matter becomes significant when we remember that Nazariabad, as one of the southern areas of Tehran, has always had a low price level in the rental sector and thus has a high population density. Reza Ghaibi emphasized that a 20 million toman rent for a unit in this area is equivalent to two months' salary for a worker in 2023, indicating 'the depth of the disaster in society.' This journalist believes that housing conditions in the coming months will be more critical than last year, as the increase in the dollar price from 50,000 tomans in Bahman of last year to around 70,000 tomans at the end of Farvardin 1403 will impact the housing market within a three-month period. The housing crisis in Iran has deepened; some income brackets cannot even afford to rent a house. A historical record of rental price increases in Iran has been broken under Raisi's government. A member of parliament stated that the cost of housing construction is unpredictable. The waiting period for purchasing a house has exceeded 100 years; becoming a homeowner has become out of reach. Turbulence in Iran's financial markets; each US dollar reached 64,000 tomans.