IRAQ-SULAIMANIYA/HOUSING High rent in Iraq's Kurdistan region price people out of market

Record ID: 150588

  • Title: IRAQ-SULAIMANIYA/HOUSING High rent in Iraq's Kurdistan region price people out of market
  • Date: 9th June 2015
  • Summary: SULAIMANIYA, IRAQ (RECENT)(REUTERS) STREET IN SULAIMANIYA MORE OF STREET IN SULAIMANIYA BUILDING WITH SIGN ON IT READING IN KURDISH READING "FOR RENT" BUILDING IN STREET WITH SIGN ON IT READING IN ARABIC AND KURDISH "WE HAVE A FURNISHED FLAT FOR MONTHLY RENT" SIGN READING IN ARABIC AND KURDISH "WE HAVE A FURNISHED FLAT FOR MONTHLY RENT" ERBIL, IRAQ (RECENT)(REUTERS) HOUSE
  • Embargoed: 24th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA27ZI9NJ65JEQAN1TVMVBM0Q8P
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Driving around the streets of Iraq's Kurdistan region gives off the impression that there's a plentiful supply of properties to rent.
    Rental signs hang on high rise buildings offering furnished apartments. But locals here say there's a shortage of affordable homes.
    They say an influx in the number of internally displaced people to cities like Sulaimaniya and Erbil has driven the cost of renting a property higher, pricing them out of the market.
    "I have been looking for a house to rent for a month now. I have not left a real estate office unchecked and the rent level I heard is 700-800 U.S dollars a month and when I asked why the rent is so high, I was told that it is high for the Kurds, but not for the Arabs who can afford to pay. If it was not for the Arabs, the rent (of a house) would not have exceeded 500 or 600 U.S dollars at the maximum,'' said Kurdish citizen Hameed Mohammed.
    Kurdish official figures estimate the number of refugees in the region at more than two million people, out of them are about 95,000 Iraqi Arab families including Christians residing in Erbil since 2007 in addition to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled the raging violence in their country.
    Estate agents here say high demand for rental housing by Iraqi Arabs and the scarcity of available homes to rent have driven up prices of apartments and houses to almost double their levels one year ago.
    According to official figures around 90,000 displaced Iraqi families are living in rented houses, with thousands of other families living in camps.
    Some estate agents say many Iraqi Arabs can afford to spend more.
    "Our people want a rent ranging between 400 to 500 thousand (Iraqi dinar) but displaced people from Ramadi or those from outside the region can rent a houses even if the rent is 600, 700 or 800 U.S dollars and this has and effect. The Kurds have been suffering from an economic crisis for over a year now. They (Arabs) are better than us financially and there are well-to-do people who do not mind paying 700 or 800 U.S dollars for a house to accommodate his family and children," said estate agent, Abdullah Omar.
    More than a fifth of Kurdistan's five million people are on a government payroll that has swollen to 840 billion dinars ($722 million) a month - 70 percent of public spending in 2013.
    Baghdad cut budget payments to the Kurds in January 2014 over the semi-autonomous region's oil policies.
    They were later reinstated after the Kurds agreed to export an average of 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Ceyhan via Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) in 2015.
    The situation is almost the same in Sulaimaniya, the second largest city of the Kurdistan region, which has a sizeable Arab community.
    It isn't only locals though who say they can't afford the high rent prices here. Baha Adel came here from Ramadi, he's been living in a hotel for the past two months.
    "We did not find a house to rent or the rents prices are too high. We are paying now one million (Iraqi dinars month) and we are a small family. Prices of rent are too high and houses are scarce and permissions are difficult to get,'' he said.
    Estate agents also say that an increase in demand, has meant that there aren't enough properties to accommodate everyone.
    "Twenty to 30 people call at the office daily asking for houses to let, but we do not have even one single house. Every hour, we have three, four or five clients asking for houses to rent , but houses are unavailable or they are very few. A year or six months ago, one could find four to five houses to rent a day, but now you can hardly find two or three houses a month. All the houses are rented by our Arab brothers. Now if you go to any residential area, you will find that half of its residents are Kurds and the other half are Arabs," said estate agent, Hajji Rahim Shwanni.
    "Rents are all in dollars. The rent of a big unfurnished house starts at 600 and reaches up to 1500 or 2000, whereas the price of a hotel room is 600 for the first month, 700 for the second and 800 for the third," added Iraqi Arab, Shakir.
    Only last week the United Nations appealed for half a billion dollars in international aid to tackle a worsening humanitarian crisis in Iraq triggered by the conflict with Islamic State militants.
    The world body said it was asking donors for $497 million to pay for shelter, food and water over the next six months for millions of Iraqis forced from their homes or otherwise affected by violence between Iraqi forces and Islamic State fighters.
    Violence has already forced nearly 3 million Iraqis from their homes, the U.N. says.
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