Sanctions hit Iran’s middle class
TEHRAN, Iran — Stay-at-home mom Maryam Alidadi used to lead a comfortable middle-class life. The 35-year-old and her husband, a mechanic, could afford a spacious rental apartment in a central neighborhood of Tehran, along with a car, occasional restaurant meals and holidays abroad.
Now they are barely hanging on, even after drastically cutting spending.
Like most Iranians, the family was hit hard by the collapse of the national currency, accelerating inflation and eroding wages — fallout from U.S. sanctions.
Perhaps most devastating for Iran’s large middle class has been the sharp spike in housing prices, more than double in a year. That has uprooted tenants and made home ownership unattainable for most.
The Alidadis sold their car and borrowed from friends and family to buy a smaller apartment in a less desirable area on the outskirts of Tehran — in hindsight a smart move, since they’ve been priced out of their old neighborhood by now. U.S. sanctions against Iran have resulted in housing prices more than doubling in the past year.
“Right now, this is the most difficult period ever,” said Alidadi’s 58-year-old mother, Shahla Allahverdi, reflecting on the Islamic Republic’s 40-year history as she shared a park bench with her daughter.
Iranians worry about the future as tensions between Iran and the West continue to rise.
The escalation — triggered by the Trump administration’s withdrawal last year from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers — seems unstoppable, and European mediators trying to defuse the situation keep coming up short.
The showdown between Washington and Tehran has upended the lives of Iranians as they try to survive on less. A bride borrowed a wedding dress because she couldn’t afford to buy or even rent one. More newlyweds move in with their families to save money. Visa requests are up at foreign embassies, with young Iranians eager to leave.
The economy contracted 4.9% from March 2018 to March 2019. It is expected to shrink by an additional 5.5% in the year ending March 2020, according to Iranian figures. The official inflation rate has risen to 35%, up from 23.8% in the March 2018 to March 2019 period.
The housing and construction sector, which makes up about onequarter of the economy and is the top destination for savings and investments, has been thrown out of balance.
Property owners are reluctant to sell and landlords are sharply raising rents because of the currency collapse, said Ali Dadpay, a finance professor at the University of Dallas. He said an estimated 490,000 homes stand empty in and around the capital, including more than 40,000 units added this year.
At the same time, construction lags far behind the need of 1.2 million new homes a year nationwide, said Hesam Oghabaei, deputy head of the Tehran association of real estate agents. He said about 25% of Tehran’s residents live in rented apartments, and the vast majority cannot afford the price increases.
One of Tehran’s newest areas, District 22, is under construction on the northwestern edge of the city. It consists of apartment high-rises and shopping malls arranged around an artificial lake called Chitgar.
Alidadi and her husband bought an 880-squarefoot apartment in December, downsizing by a third from their rented home in a more affluent area.
“Our standard of living has dropped considerably,” she said, adding that she now regrets having quit her government job four years ago when her son Rami was born.