A member of the Construction Commission of the Iranian regime’s Majlis (parliament) has reported an intensification of the housing crisis in Iran and stated that “today the house rent prices have exceeded the purchasing power of the working class, employees, and lower-income segments of society.”
Ismaeil Hossein-Zehi also announced the identification and closure of over ten thousand unauthorized real estate agencies in the country, considering them as “the cause of the crisis” in the housing market.
Babak Negahdari, the head of the Majlis Research Center, stated on May 21 that “government policies” have led to a 52-fold increase in housing prices in Tehran over the past 17 years, although this price growth “has been eightfold in a small city like Yasuj.”
One of the mentioned policies is the determination of rent ceilings, which landlords have never adhered to.
In this regard, the head of the National Association of Housing and Building Constructors of Iran had stated that there is no solution available in the current situation to control rental markets.
Mohammad Mortazavi emphasized that “focusing” on short-term solutions in the rental market “diverts us from finding the proper solution.” According to Mortazavi, the processes pursued in recent years regarding housing and rent have not only failed to solve the problem but have also increased “dissatisfaction and mistrust” among tenants.
In response to the exclusion of rental housing from the reach of a considerable portion of society, the state-run “Donya-e-Eqtesad” newspaper also wrote on July 11 that “the new defeat of tenants in the rental market has resulted in a new scene of forced migration of housing-deprived households to cheaper areas.”
According to the newspaper’s report, the tolerance of tenants has not only decreased significantly in the face of new rental prices but has also decreased significantly even in maintaining “last year’s rental levels.”
The regime’s newspaper Ham-Mihan also reacted on May 4 to the rental market and stated that the determination of the growth rate of housing rents, which was initiated by the Hassan Rouhani administration, has turned into a “failed plan” without any executive guarantee.
The report emphasized that the High Council of Housing had set a 25% rental ceiling for Tehran and 20% for other cities this year, but there is no sign of the council’s resolution being implemented.
Mohammad Reza Tajik, a representative of workers in the Supreme Labor Council, also considered workers’ housing as one of the “unsolved” problems of the working community and said, “Unfortunately, various governments have failed in their housing plans.”
An examination of the rental market conditions in Iran indicates that despite the promises of regime officials, the latest official statistics show an increase in the growth rate of rents in the month of August compared to July.
According to the statistics announced by the Statistical Center of Iran, the “housing rent” index has increased by an average of 38% in the first five months of this year (from March to August) compared to the same period of the previous year.
According to the analysis of the “Donya-e-Eqtesad” newspaper, the current growth rate of rent costs is more than twice the “historical inflation in this market” and 1.9 times the “government-approved ceiling.”
Official statistics of the regime show such a situation, and the history of “statistical manipulation” and manipulation of indices and calculation methods by official institutions has always been a concern of independent experts, which is why there is no trust in their accuracy.
Experts believe that reality is always “more severe” than the image presented by the official statistics of the regime‘s institutions.
