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Housing Crunch Hits Young Couples in
Sulaimaniyah
13.7.2006
By Azeez Mahmood in Sulaimaniyah (ICR No. 185) |
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High prices and lack of new homes make it
difficult for newlyweds to find a place of their
own.
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan-Iraq , -- Shayma
Omar's world is limited to four walls in her
mother-in-law's house. Within the one room she
shares with her husband and her one-year-old son,
Shayma, a 27-year-old housewife, sleeps, watches
television, prepares food and tries to avoid her
mother-in-law's acidic tongue.
She yearns to live in a family home of her own, but
high housing prices in this northeastern Kurdish
city mean there is little chance she will escape her
small, suffocating world any time soon.
"If I could have rented a house, I wouldn't be
living here," said Omar, tears welling up in her
eyes. "We’re always fighting with my mother-in-law."
The two biggest economic issues facing residents of
northern Iraq are the housing shortage and low
salaries, and the combination makes it difficult for
young couples to afford to live on their own.
House prices in Sulaimaniyah skyrocketed after the
fall of the Baathist government in 2003. As the
economy grew, villagers moved in looking for
better-paid jobs, and people from other parts of
Iraq migrated to a city widely considered the safest
in the country.
Marriages, too, flourished following the
cancellation of United Nations-imposed sanctions
three years ago, but many young couples now find
themselves priced out of the market and living at
home.
Bakir Mohammad, 32, owns the Lara estate agents’
company in a middle-class Sulaimaniyah
neighbourhood. He reckoned that house prices have
increased fourfold since 2000, and are still rising
daily because of the high demand. He said a
200-square-metre house is now worth 120,000 to
150,000 US dollars. The same property costs between
250 and 500 dollars a month to rent.
"The housing crisis is among the main economic
problems in the region. The rents are unaffordable
not just for one person, but even for a family,"
said Niyaz Najmadeen, a professor in the statistics
department of Sulaimaniyah University's college of
administration and economics. "The Kurdistan
government pays low incomes, and building a house is
costly."
The civil servants who account for much of
Sulaimaniyah's workforce earn as little as 100
dollars a month.
According to Shwan Mahmood, the 42-year-old owner of
the Pasand firm of estate agents, another reason why
housing prices have skyrocketed is that private
companies, government agencies and non-governmental
organisations are willing to pay higher-than-average
rents and have moved into private houses rather than
Sulaimaniyah's limited office space.
And then there is the population increase. Thanks to
the instability in other regions that has forced
some Iraqis to move to Sulaimaniyah, as well as a
growing number of jobs in the city, its population
is increasing by about three per cent every year,
according to Mahmood Othman, head of Sulaimaniyah's
statistical office.
The government of the Kurdish region - which assumed
office in May, replacing the two separate
administrations which previously ran the three
northern governorates known collectively as Iraqi
Kurdistan - has said it wants to adopt free market
principles following decades of Baathist socialism.
The previous Sulaimaniyah-based government set aside
30 million dollars to build 25,000 new housing units
in 2006. The authorities are also facilitating loans
and payments for married couples who want to
purchase housing through the Nawzad company, which
wants to build 5,000 homes in Sulaimaniyah over the
next two years. The government offers first-time
buyers 7,500 dollar-loans.
But the housing project has progressed in fits and
starts, and few new homes have been built in the
city this year. Many residents said that even if the
additional housing comes, it is overpriced when
compared with average income levels. Nawzad is
selling houses at 275 dollars per square metre.
Tara Mohammad, a 31-year-old employee at
Sulaimaniyah University, has spent nearly a year
looking for a house to live in with her future
husband. She makes 250,000 Iraqi dinars (about 170
dollars) a month, while her fiancé earns only
100,000 each month.
Tara has frequent arguments with her father and
other family members about why she has not moved out
yet, and now she is close to giving up on her
marriage plans as well as finding a home.
"The housing problem isn't a problem for me for me
alone. It's affecting all of my friends," she said.
"If I don't find a house, the best solution will be
for us to break up."
Azeez Mahmood is an IWPR contributor in Sulaimaniyah.
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