Land applications open next week with no financing settled

BAGHDAD — Applications for Iraq’s million-plot housing scheme open on Sept. 1, but the Construction and Housing Ministry says discussion of how recipients will pay to build is still premature.

“The discussion about including the land that the government announced it would distribute under the one million residential plots initiative in Baghdad and the governorates in Housing Fund loans is still premature,” spokesperson Nabil al-Saffar told the Iraqi News Agency. The immediate priority is preparing land, transferring it to municipalities, completing sector designs and dividing it into plots, with developers brought in later for infrastructure and a points system to rank applicants.

“One of the most important distribution criteria is that the applicant does not own, or have previously owned, any plot of land or residential unit,” he said.

Affordable finance remains the main obstacle, the ministry said. The Iraqi Housing Fund and the Real Estate Bank are the main lenders, with Rasheed, Rafidain and some private banks playing a smaller role, and existing programmes have helped tens of thousands of families but fall well short of demand. Saffar said proposed measures include better land registration, electronic property deeds, credit guarantees and longer-term financing, along with banking reforms to draw private capital into housing.

Government spokesperson Haider al-Aboudi said Monday that more than 250,000 plots had been secured for the first phase and that lending mechanisms were under study with banks. Applicants will be checked against property records, with the Justice Ministry building a national database of owners. The scheme covers governorates outside the Kurdistan Region.