Government Tries to Offload Luxury Homes

The Turkmen government has introduced the first mortgages ever seen in the country, but high property prices coupled with the fact that the home loans will not be widely available mean that very few people will benefit, NBCentralAsia analysts say.



On November 3, Saparmurat Niazov instructed the commercial Presidentbank to start issuing loans with a 15 year term and a purely symbolic annual interest rate of one per cent. But there is a catch – Niazov said the loans would only be available to people buying luxury flats in multistorey apartment blocks located in the capital Ashgabat.



The mortgage conditions also require borrowers to make a down-payment of 30 per cent of the total cost of such properties, which local estate estate agencies say go for 40,000 or 50,000 US dollars. The loan also requires a deposit to be paid. Finally, the mortgaged property cannot be rented out, gifted or inherited.



Commentators to whom NBCentralAsia talked said the move looks like an attempt to shift some of these luxury apartments rather than a true aspiration to introduce mortgage lending. There are none of the basic preconditions for mortgage selling, such as a developed securities market and a pool of solvent borrowers.



“The multistorey apartment blocks that have been built are lying empty, since not many people can afford such expensive housing. So the regime wants to get them occupied, and is devising various mechanisms to that end,” said a source based in Turkmenistan.



Luxury apartment blocks starting springing up in Ashgabat several years ago, after President Niazov required government ministries and departments to build large, 200-metre square apartments out of their own funds, and then sell them to civil servants.



However, sources in Turkmenistan say very few public servants have expressed any desire to buy such a home. As one local resident said, “People are trying not to buy apartments in elite apartment blocks, because once they’ve done so, Niazov’s secret services will try to find out where they got the money to afford such luxury.”



Experts on Ashgabat’s property market say many residents of the capital do not own their home and simply rent rooms because they cannot afford either to buy or to repay a loan. The average salary in Turkmenistan is currently 700,000 manat (around 30 US dollars) a month.



The few who can afford apartments generally buy them through brokers who trade in real estate. These firms can also help buy a flat in a luxury block, and then there is no need to go public with a Presidentbank mortgage. But brokers charge an extra six to 12,000 dollars more.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)