Collapse at a Real Estate Company offices

Will you expect this!

A collapse at the canopy of a Real Estate Development company. Thats funny!!! and it's weired that they didn't remove it yet!!!

We say: "Bab El-Najjar Mkhala3" ... "the door of the carpenter is broken"

2007 Jordan Real Estate Trading

Sharing some numbers of 2007 Real Estate trading:

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) Real estate trading went up by 8 per cent last year to JD5.6 billion compared to JD5.2 billion in 2006. As such, Land and Survey Department revenues increased by 6 per cent during 2007, reaching around JD355.4 million.

North Amman ranked first with revenues totalling around JD5.4 million, followed by that of Amman at around JD4.5 million while the registration department of south Amman ranked third at JD3.45 million.

West Amman came in fourth place, accounting for around JD2.8 million in revenues, according to the Land and Survey Department. Iraqi investors continued to top the list of non-Jordanian investors, accounting for JD60 million while Kuwaiti and Saudi investments totalled JD18 million and JD11 million respectively.



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The Landlord, Tenant, and Government Law

We all probably heard about this, but, how is it cooking? God knows and as we say God forbids" allah Yustor."

How many people will be thrown out of their houses, and shops to the streets? We Hope nobody.
How many alternative housing units will be provided? Maybe 100 of thousands.

How much shall the Landlords and tenants compromise? Alot

Are you with this law or not?

Well, it's a fair proposal but how to implement it is challenging.

How to make everybody happy?

My suggestion is to create an account where the Tenant pays the extra rent to the Landlord taken as a percentage of increase in rents depending on the Tenant Credit history: Financial statements, or taxes, or Wages, or whatever credit the Tenant holds.
Oops, I forgot we don't have credit history in this country, other than your political history.

SO,

Maybe we start by "First things First" and start thinking /about thinking/ of creating a social security and credit history for every citizen. Then we start talking about the wealth distribution.

OR, we just throw the tenants out and just care about the richer getting richer.

Note: It's understandable that it's ridiculous to pay a 100JD to rent a shop in West Amman!!! However, the mistake from the beginning was made because of the law and who put that law is to be taken the responsibility and not the citizen. If "The Law" to be changed the three parties should be involved:

The Tenant: Whose paying a ridiculous amount of money but covered with a contract.
The Landlord: Where the value of the property is much higher than the payments received. The Government: Who's changing the law

Hence, the three parties involved need to have a fair settlement

AMMAN - Lawyers and human rights activists foresee “social upheaval” and a legal hubbub when a controversial provision in the Landlords and Tenants Law will leave all property lease contracts null and void.

They expect thousands of traded lawsuits between tenants and landlords to flood the already overburdened courts.

Article 5 of the regulation, which was passed by Parliament in 2000, stipulates that all property rent contracts will be null and void on December 31, 2010. The provision gave the renters 10 years to look for alternatives.

“Where shall I go?” exclaimed father of seven Abu Ahmad, 48, who has lived in a leased flat in Jabal Nasr neighbourhood in Amman for almost 30 years. He works in the Central Vegetable and Fruit Market for JD10 a day and pays JD80 monthly for rent.

“The landlord has already informed us, that by 2011 we will have to leave,” he said. At present, Abu Ahmad, like thousands of renters in the country, cannot afford to find another apartment, particularly with the increasing rent rates and prices of housing units.

"I will not leave just like that,” he said.

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A flat of 150 square metres in a middle-class area in Amman costs around JD60,000-70,000, and a minimum of JD200 monthly rent. With a $2,540 per capita income this year and an inflation rate expected to rise higher above the six per cent registered last year, the cost will be too high for people like Abu Ahmad to afford.

“I will be thrown in the street with my family and I just cannot allow that,” he said with a threatening stern look on his face.

There are thousands of tenants who share Abu Ahmad’s attitude, said Issam Sharif, a lawyer who conducted a study released this week on the impact of the controversial law in cooperation with Al Ahd Party and the Law Group for Human Rights (MIZAN).

MIZAN’s director, Eva Abu Halaweh, said trouble is a strong possibility: Landlords will be filing lawsuits to kick tenants out and tenants will try to find any reason to hold on to the places where they live. Violence is not a far possibility, she said.

The Department of Statistics did not have updated figures on the number of leaseholders or landlords.

Al Ahd Party’s Secretary General Khaldoun Nasser estimated that there are 1.5-2.0 million real estate renting contracts.

He said these contracts include private and public schools, bakeries, groceries, pharmacies and light industries that might go out of business in 2011.

For their part, landlords argue that renters have benefited enough from properties at low rates for long and it’s high time they left.

Nabil Abdeh, formerly a United States resident, said his late father leased the first floor of the family house in the affluent Sweifieh neighbourhood for JD100 in 1980. The tenant would not leave now, while the real estate prices in this area are skyrocketing, the son said. The landlord pays the water and electricity bills under the original contract, Abdeh said, adding that the rent value is hardly enough to cover these utilities.

“This is unfair,” Abdeh said, noting “if the law is going to fail in protecting our rights, what justice can we expect?”

“A complicated issue,” said Nasser. “But the solution is not shifting the burden from the owners’ shoulders to the lessees.”

Activists say that landlords lobbied for the law seven years ago because they would make millions if their tenants were out.

The lobbying started mid-1990s, Sharif said in his research, following the issuance of the older version of the law in 1994.

Property owners demanded amendments to that law and their efforts paid off as the 13th Parliament endorsed the amendments in 2000, Sharif said.

In the 14th Parliament, 64 deputies proposed changes to the 2000 law, but the motion remained in “the drawers of the legal committee”, according to Abu Halaweh.

His Majesty King Abdullah brought up the issue again in the Speech from the Throne at the opening of the 15th Parliament this week.

The King said: “From this democratic forum, I call on the legislative and executive authorities to start a positive dialogue on the Landlords and Tenants Law to come up with practical solutions that take into consideration the realisation of social security, justice and the interests of all, whether they are landlords or tenants.”

In the speech, as on other occasions, he instructed the authorities to work on providing housing for those with limited income at affordable prices, and declared 2008 as “year of housing”.

Related Posts:

Housing for Limited income people bought by High income people.

Housing for Limited income people bought by High income people.

Saraya Aqaba, 1 villa cost JD1.5 million which also buy 75 housing units at Al-Majd affordable Housing project, photo by Emad Salameh

"Construction work on the $350 million Madinat Al Majd project in Zarqa, which entails the creation of 18,500 residential units targeting limited-income people, began on Wednesday.

The residential city, to be created over 2 million square metres and accommodate some 50,000 inhabitants, will include houses of different sizes that will be sold at “affordable” prices starting from JD18,000 per apartment.

Madinat Al Majd also house a large mosque, schools, a medical community, cultural and shopping centres.

The first phase of the project, which will see the construction of some 500 housing units, will be completed in one year, adding that the project will help meet the increasing demand for small-sized apartments.

A recent study on civil servants conducted by HUDC indicated the demand for such apartments exceeds 60,000 while the total demand for housing in the Kingdom currently stands at 200,000 units.

Madinat Al Majd, the first housing project to be developed for the limited-income segment, will be a significant architectural landmark in Jordan. It would provide the wider community with the chance to own homes in a healthy environment for a monthly payment similar to what they would pay in rent.

Noting that the project is the result of cooperation between the public and private sectors, and it it has received the full support of the government.

Over the next six months, Tameer will announce a series of projects to be implemented in the Kingdom, including the construction of a residential city for high-income earning individuals, as well as towers, malls and commercial buildings.

Four residential cities will be built in the near future: One in Amman called “Ahl Alazm”, and three in the Balqa, Irbid and Aqaba governorates."

When I saw this project being marketed at Cityscape Dubai in Oct 2007, the first phase of the project with the 500 units were SOLD OUT during the first exhibition day for about 20,000 JD a unit, but, who bought them and for whom it was marketed at Cityscape Dubai 2007, the irony it was for the real estate brokers and the business buyers.

This project got the cooperation from the public and private sectors and the support and the blessing of the government as the first "affordable" housing project targeting the limited income, so we assume that the buyer is the limited income citizen.

When you position yourself as a limited income housing you need to make sure that the buyer is the limited income buyer and before you get the payments you need to ask for the bank statements and proofs that the buyer is in need for an affordable house, meeting your based targets.

Did this happen?

Maybe this goes to "lessons learned" category which we hear it often these days. However, in the next "Affordable" projects I wish this will be in forced.

Or it might go to the category of: " Investors incentives", "Special strategical planning", etc, etc

Related Posts:

We need Amman to be environmentaly sustainable and green

Regarding the new GAM Interim Strategy

Smoking in Public

Amman City Streets

Building what and why Amman?

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