Lately in the media we are hearing a lot about foreclosures caused by subprime mortgages in America. This made me wonder how mortgages and real estate transactions are handled in places other than United States. So here’s the first installment featuring Afghanistan since it’s the alphabetically first country in the world.
Some quick facts about Afghanistan taken from Wikipedia:
Population
- 2007 estimate 31,889,923 (37th)
- 1979 census 13,051,358
- Density 119 /sq mi
It’s actually very hard to find any legitimate looking Afghani real estate listings on the internet. The war-torn country lost an incredible amount of homes while its population is still increasing at a rapid clip. Home mortgages were just introduced this year in Kabul according to a recent article in the BBC:
New Kabul is an ambitious experiment in mortgaging homes - the first time ever in Afghanistan - in a country where an annual $380 per capita income makes it virtually impossible for most people to afford homes.
Banks will buy these homes from the government and then mortgage them to buyers who, officials reckon, will have to pay $100 to $150 every month for 16 years before becoming owners.
The article then goes on to describe the massive amount of home shortages in Afghanistan and that for most Afghanis owning a home is “virtually impossible”. Many homes are illegally built and crumbling apartments are in demand. There is no mention of home prices, but the article did state that “a two-bedroom apartment in Kabul can cost $200 a month, compared to $7 for a three-bedroom home before the war in 1978″ because of the home building shortages. No foreclosure data is available due to mortgage products being very new.
What we can derive from this is that the new homes with mortgages are all sold by the government. It implies that there are governmental regulations around these home transactions. Additionally, rent payments seem to be more expensive than the mortgage payments due to the shortage of homes. In Afghanistan, perhaps mortgages will be what they’re meant to do, help people fight inflation of housing prices.
Addendum: in my search for real estate in Afghanistan I did find a California real estate investor looking for “Real Estate Deelopment” opportunities in Afghanistan. Perhaps he’s on the right track.
