Tag Archives | real estate

The Housing Bank Just Screwed Home Shoppers in Lebanon

By Rami on February 15, 2018 in Economy

The two most popular options for home shoppers in Lebanon in order to finance their purchases is to either get a loan from the General Organization for Housing in case the apartment price is relatively low, or from the Housing Bank if the price is on the higher end.

However, earlier this month the Central Bank of Lebanon issued a new circular with amendments on subsidized loans, and as a result the Housing Bank increased its the interest rate from 3% to 3.75% while lowering the payment period from 30 to 20 years and toughening the lending terms in general.

To give you an idea of how these amendments impacted the monthly payments, a loan of $250,000 used to cost ~$1,050 on the previous conditions, but currently cost ~$1,500 based on the new terms and rate (refer to their loan calculator). Needless to say, this 50% increase means that a lot of home shoppers now can no longer afford the apartments they were previously aiming for!

I, for example, have been searching for an apartment in Beirut for a while now and the new terms mean that I have two options, to either settle for a significantly smaller one in space, or simply look for one of the same size outside the city. The latter is unfortunately a deal breaker for me so I just decided to halt everything now in hope for the prices to go down maybe… I guess it is only logical for this to happen now that the demand is expected to take a hit.

Things are by the way also quite ugly now for people who are already engaged by contracts with real estate developers. Those usually pay monthly installments directly to the developers until the project is fully complete, and then apply for a loan to finance the remaining amount, but they definitely didn’t see a 50% increase on their future payments coming! And while people like me can simply stop searching, others who are bound with contracts can do nothing but go for the loan anyway or pull out of the whole thing and pay a certain penalty to the developer for doing so.

I’m not an expert in economics but things seriously don’t seem right with the new Housing Bank decision, I mean you can’t simply cut down the people’s purchasing power just like that. I just hope this isn’t an indication of the Lebanese Lira being in a bad situation now and I also hope these amendments are only a temporary measure. Otherwise, I guess the real estate market is expected to go into stagnation no matter how developers try to convince the public that it is a resilient sector!

A new Solidere in the making?

By Rami on July 19, 2013 in Lebanon

Adjacent to downtown Beirut is a small area called “Khanda2 el Ghami2”, and if you happened to pass by it someday, you can’t but notice the many abandoned buildings there. Once street in fact, the Tayyan street which is pretty close to Beirut Digital District, looks deserted with many vacant buildings. And what’s weirder is that there isn’t a single construction site there even though we all know there’s always a high demand for Land in Beirut.

Upon asking around a bit, one trusted source told me there’s a real estate company that is slowly purchasing every single building in Khanda2 el Ghami2 (the area enclosed in red), and have so far purchased many of the buildings you see in the picture above, in order to later demolish them all and reconstruct the whole area to make way for commercial spaces, residential towers, etc… and thus making it quite similar to what Solidere looks like.

Not that I oppose the idea, since the company isn’t doing anything illegal and is actually offering good money to the owners, but if would be interesting to learn more about this project. So if you have any information about it, please do share it in the comments.

Here’s what Waterfront City will look like

By Rami on July 13, 2013 in Lebanon

It seems like a second Solidere to me, minus the controversy that surrounded the expropriation phase in the early 90s.

I guess the biggest challenge that will face the developers is most probably trying to convince zouzou ebba drivers to show off their skills somewhere else than the marina!

Yet another old house gets demolished in Beirut

By Rami on February 1, 2013 in Lebanon

I really felt sad when I learned this old house in Ain El Mraisseh is being demolished as I know some of its previous owner (The Nsouli’s), and I know how beautiful it was from the inside.

But then again, at a time when the government has no plans to acquire these old houses and protect them, you just can’t expect people to keep preserving heritage buildings while the real estate market in the country is booming.

Beirut has 36th most expensive retail rent in the world

By Rami on November 21, 2012 in Lebanon

It isn’t surprising anymore to read about Beirut being ranked among the most expensive cities in the world.

The 2012 survey of the world’s most expensive retail rental locations by property consultants Cushman & Wakefield ranked Beirut as the 36th most expensive city among 62 cities worldwide, the second most expensive city among seven cities in the Middle East & Africa region, and the most expensive among five Arab cities. Source

It’s interesting though that the report lists the retail rent per location in Beirut compared to other places in the region.

The ABC Achrafieh ranked as the third most expensive location in the region at $2,000/month, followed by Kaslik Street in 10th place at $1,500/month, Verdun Street in 12th place at $1,400/month, the Beirut Central District in13th place at $1,200/month, and Hamra Street in 19th place at $850/month. (All figures are as at June 2012)

Waterfront City Dbayeh

By Rami on February 12, 2012 in Lebanon

Here’s how Dbayeh’s Waterfront City should look like in a few years from now.

According to this article in The Daily Star, the project will be complete in 4 phases over a period of 15 years (too much??), with the first phase set to be complete with 7 buildings in 2 years from now.

I just wish this project and the alike outside Beirut would consider creating more office spaces to take some load off the suffocating areas in Beirut such as Hamra, Achrafiyeh, and downtown.

Beirut Theater will be demolished

By Rami on December 19, 2011 in Lebanon

I heard about the demolishing of Beirut Theater located in Ain El-Mrayseh earlier in November but coudn’t find any piece of news online to support the story until today morning.

I found this post by Marie-Josée Rizkallah over at “L’espace lunaire” blog about the matter, and a petition is now online calling for a sit-in in front of the Lebanese ministry of culture to save the theater by labeling it as a cultural heritage. Being real, I guess we all know these stuff never worked and the theater will eventually be demolished.

Anyway, a friend of mine told me that Beirut Theater is now open free for people who want to exhibit their work or performance until it completely closes down anytime soon.

Noor Holding nothing but a scam

By Rami on June 5, 2011 in Lebanon

Remember the construction company that made a media buzz back in 2009 with the Cedar Island project it was promoting?

Call me naive, but this company, Noor Holding, had everything needed to let you think they’re doing legitimate business. A prestigious office in downtown Beirut, excessive advertising, claims about hundreds of household units being built, a good looking website, a “golden” phone number (01-999999), and a TV station. And at the end it turned out that the whole thing was nothing but a scam with the founder Mohammad Saleh (the man in the above photo) escaping with 5 million dollars! You can read everything about the issue in this article from Al-Akhbar.

I definitely don’t want to be in the shoes of those who have paid down payments for booking apartments with Noor Holding. These people will probably get nothing but news about Mr. Saleh moving from one country to another with their money…