Corruption and poor planning drive real estate prices in Baghdad to skyrocketing levels

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[size=52]Corruption and poor planning drive real estate prices in Baghdad to skyrocketing levels[/size]

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The luxury complexes are expensive and the loans are useless[/size]
[size=45]Baghdad, (AFP) - After years of painstaking research, Youssef Ahmed reached the brink of despair about the possibility of buying him and his small family a house or an apartment to live in, as real estate prices in Baghdad have reached high levels, for many reasons, including corruption and poor planning. From pressure. Population, which prompted an increase in the demand for real estate to money laundering, real estate prices in the capital are out of the reach of the middle class.[/size]
[size=45]In a country where the average income ranges between 400 to 500 dollars per month per person, according to a survey published in 2022 by the International Labor Organization in cooperation with the Iraqi authorities, the prices of residential real estate in Baghdad, which have been relatively stable in recent years, range between two thousand dollars per square meter and eight thousand or eight thousand dollars. more.[/size]
[size=45]high request[/size]
[size=45]Stability was accompanied by the capital attracting a large number of residents, which swelled to nine million, and with the high demand for real estate. Meanwhile, the streets of the capital are filled with huge advertisements for modern residential complexes and towers at exorbitant prices, in a city choked with traffic congestion, and its roads float with water after rain and are crowded with wires. Electric generators, a reflection of the deterioration of its infrastructure following years of wars and neglect. Youssef, 29, works in a private telecommunications company and earns a thousand dollars a month. However, he cannot afford the cost of buying an apartment in which he lives with his wife and child and is independent from his family’s house. He says The young man, “even if the income has evolved over time, but in return, the house prices… are multiplying dramatically.”[/size]
[size=45]In view of this, the alternatives do not seem attractive, as the luxury residential complexes that have begun to spread in recent years are exorbitant. On the other hand, “if we think of moving away from the center of Baghdad,” where prices are lower, “we have to move a lot, and this is difficult,” because of the difficulty of transportation and poor services.[/size]
[size=45]As for the available loans, they are not very useful, “even if you took a loan of one hundred million dinars (about 68 thousand dollars), it will not buy you anything, and its benefits are high.” Iraqi investment has always been in the real estate market, especially after the US invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam’s regime. Hussein and the ensuing civil war and the violations of the Islamic State, he goes to Turkey in the first place, or to Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, which succeeded in being a facade of modernity with good infrastructure, highways and giant real estate projects. However, with relative stability in the capital, Baghdad, a massive reconstruction campaign has been launched in recent years, and prices have soared. On the crowded commercial Karrada Street in the capital, dozens of real estate offices line up close to each other, while newly constructed building structures are adjacent to traditional Baghdadi houses that are on the verge of collapse.[/size]
[size=45]Here, Samer Al-Khafaji has been working in the real estate sector for eight years, during which he noticed a significant increase in prices, especially the last year. “The market started to rise without stopping,” Al-Khafaji says.[/size]
[size=45]He explains that the prices of lands and houses in the area in which he works “were between 1,200 to 1,500 and 1,700 dollars per square metre. Today, they are about three thousand dollars per square metre,” up to five thousand in some areas. In the Jadiriya area, which is considered one of the most luxurious areas in the capital, the price per square meter may reach four thousand dollars and even eight thousand dollars for commercial real estate, says the owner of a real estate office, Hussein Al-Saffar. The young man talks about “an imaginary rise in prices.” "Baghdad is currently crowded, as the center of Iraq, the population is increasing, and therefore there is a demand for real estate," he added.[/size]
[size=45]And in a country that ranks 157 out of 180) in Transparency International’s index of “perceptions of corruption,” the issue of soaring real estate prices in Baghdad is linked to money laundering, as officials readily admit.[/size]
[size=45]The Iraqi economic analyst, Ali al-Rawi, explains that “the problem with the real estate market is that dealing is in cash,” and thus it is easy to “hide money in lands and buildings.” This raises the “liquidity in the market…and thus prices rise.”[/size]
[size=45]When selling these properties, the matter takes place with “official contracts, a statement, and a sale and purchase contract. The issue is official,” and therefore “money laundering” through that is “very easy,” he says. Al-Sudani said that a large part of the tax money that was stolen was used to “buy important real estate in important areas in Baghdad.”[/size]
[size=45]tax money[/size]
[size=45]In a report in the “The Century Foundation” research center, the Iraqi researcher, Sajjad Jiyad, notes that “more than a billion dollars” of the stolen tax money amounting to 2.5 billion “were invested in 55 real estate in Baghdad, and another billion dollars were distributed between properties and lands.” and other assets. The director of public relations in the Municipality of Baghdad, Muhammad al-Rubaie, blames this crisis on “wrong planning” by successive governments “in the housing investment file,” and a general policy in this file that “did not benefit the employee and the poor.” He adds, “There is a frightening rise (in prices). It is difficult even for the rich to own even a hundred square meters in Baghdad.” He believes that “the increase in real estate prices is not linked to the market, but rather to the mafia and money laundering.” In a city where one million people live in slums, according to Al-Rubaie, the new government intends to complete inexpensive housing projects. And it is supported by loans, similar to the Bismayah project, which the State Investment Authority announced in January that work on it will resume soon.[/size]
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