Will the cost of housing lead to a construction slump?
Builders say some building materials have grown by more than 200 percent since last year, which will have an impact on the cost of the building and, consequently, the National Housing Action Plan.
According to the International Iranian Stone Exhibition, the 15% increase in the price of cement, which was announced two days ago, although it can not have much effect on the cost of housing, but once again intensified the psychological atmosphere caused by the impact of construction inputs on the exchange rate. As the sellers of construction materials say, with the announcement of the Cement Association, the price of each bag of cement will reach the consumer about 1000 Tomans more expensive from October 8th. Of course, this growth is due to the increase in the price of propylene bags, and in fact the price of cement has not risen. However, there are rumors that the fare will increase.
With this account, cement, which used to be sold for 20,000 Tomans until last week and reached the manufacturers with a shipping cost of about 22,000 Tomans, is now sold for 21,000 Tomans, and until it reaches the consumer, it costs 23,000 to 24,000 Tomans. will be.
But the gradual rise in the price of construction materials has raised concerns among builders that the construction slump will deepen. Manufacturers claim that the hardware market has become rentier and monopolized, and that prices have risen higher than those in the Persian Gulf. In addition, it is not easy to procure hardware and steel these days, and manufacturers who have their hands under the stone claim that sellers are constantly knocking.
Now it is no longer easy to calculate the cost per square meter of a residential unit. Of course, some builders state that the cost of construction has reached over 5 million tomans per square meter and it is not clear how the government can deliver national housing to applicants at a price of 2.5 to 3.5 million tomans per square meter.
The price of rebar has increased from 4200 Tomans per kilogram at the end of last year to about 14 thousand Tomans per kilogram. In the last month alone, the price of rebar per kilogram has increased by 2,000 Tomans. The price of wires and cables also increased by 20 to 30 percent and the elevator motor showed a growth of 40 percent. With fluctuations in the dollar exchange rate, the price of materials is changing day by day.
Activists in the construction industry say that in February of last year, by the end of the hardening phase of a residential unit, it would have cost about 1.2 million tomans, but now the cost of buying and transporting rebar to the end of the workshop is 1.2 million tomans.
Farshid Pourhajat, secretary of the Mass Builders Association, referring to the average 13.5 million Tomans of housing prices in Tehran in December last year, says: "With today's rate, when the price of a house in Tehran has reached 24 million Tomans per meter, we have seen a 77% increase in prices." This means that if a builder sold a house in December last year and now intends to implement a new project, his capital has been reduced by 77%, while the price of materials has risen between 150 and 200%.
With these conditions, we will probably have to wait for the change in the cost of housing construction; However, applicants are no longer able to buy, and housing market experts see the future recession in this sector as certain, and there is only disagreement about when. A group of housing market activists believe that housing prices will not jump as long as the capital is in the stock market and gold, but it will continue to grow gradually. Another group says there is no capacity to raise housing prices; However, we can not be happy with the reduction of rates.
* ISNA
