Three-sided affair only solution to housing issue: real estate experts

Govt step must overcome all obstacles before allocating 18 sites

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 19: A number of real estate experts have expressed their cautious optimism about mandating the municipality to accelerate the allocation of 18 sites to the Public Authority for Housing Welfare, in order to provide about 160,000 housing units in new cities, regions and suburbs, reports AlQabas daily.

In separate statements to the daily, the experts said that the housing issue, its only solution is three-pronged–freeing of the land, the real estate developer, and the studied financing.

Obstacles

They added the government step must also be preceded by overcoming all obstacles before allocating the 18 sites, such as establishing new stations to generate clean energy, reconsidering the electric tariff and allocating only one subsidized house for each citizen to prevent traders from investing in residential real estate, in addition to creating a real estate system that reviews all decisions and laws.

Vice-President of the Real Estate Brokers Union, Imad Haidar, confirmed that the recent news about the government’s designation of 18 sites to become new areas and suburbs that include all governorates and cover all housing requests is a step in the right direction to solve the housing issue, but it must be followed by several supporting steps, the most important of which is the speedy completion of the infrastructure, and the provision of sufficient money by the credit bank to lend to 160,000 Kuwaiti families.

Haider considered that the huge amount of plots to be built may raise the prices of building materials and wages of labor and contribute to the increase in the inflation rate.

He stated that the distribution of building plots should be part of it directed to real estate developers and the private sector, and the other part is built through the Public Authority for Housing Welfare and the state, such as government housing, and the rest remains as it is currently in practice and is known as “land and loan.”

With regard to financing, Haidar stressed the need to find financing alternatives that support the credit bank, such as mortgage and real estate financing, taking into account the balance between the interest of the citizen on the one hand and banks and financing agencies on the other.

This is in addition to creating a real estate system that reviews all old decisions and laws, and develop sustainable solutions.

Commenting on the allocation of 18 sites for the benefit of the PAHC, the expert in the local real estate market, General Manager of the Behbehani Towers Real Estate Company, Alaa Behbehani, said that the housing issue in Kuwait can only be resolved through a “triangle of 3 sides”, represented in the liberation of lands and developers. Real estate and bank financing thoughtful.