By Azernews

By Leman Mammadova

Azerbaijan has made changes to the Procedure for the preferential purchase of apartments of the State Agency for Housing Construction, Trend reports with reference to the Agency on January 21.

One of the changes implies that a person who has been provided with an electronic office in the Social Housing system may apply to the agent bank and receive a preliminary agreement decision allowing determining beforehand the amount and duration of the loan to be issued by the agent bank. This will facilitate the selection and the process of obtaining an apartment.

Another change concerns the fact that the persons, who could not choose an apartment during the sale, will be able to choose it. Thus, one apartment selected in the “Social housing” system, as part of an announcement, can be successively chosen by two persons. That is, if the apartment for any reason is not acquired by one person, then first of all this apartment will be offered in order of priority to the first person who chose this apartment.

Another change is for the persons wishing to use the additional benefits applied by the Agency to the cost of an apartment. According to this change, for those who want to buy an apartment at the expense of fully paid out own funds, the sale will be announced. Changes will be applied from May 1, 2019.

In accordance with the rules approved by the presidential decree of November 16, 2016, the cost of selling apartments offered to citizens on preferential terms is determined below the average market price established by the Azerbaijan Mortgage and Credit Guarantee Fund.

The price of one-room apartments starts from 29,925 manats ($17,602), the price of two-room apartments - from 47,282 manats ($27,812), the price of three-room apartments - from 65,626 manats ($38,602).

A preferential mortgage is issued only in the Azerbaijani manat and given to citizens of the country.

There are two types of product, including social [maximum period 30 years] and standard mortgage [maximum period 25 years], while the annual interest rate on services amounts to 4 and 8 percent respectively.

Mortgage is given only for an apartment or private house and its amount should not be more than 80 percent of the market price of the property.  Mortgage payments cannot exceed 70 percent of borrower’s total monthly income.

Every family/person who is entitled to use social mortgage loans can use these concessions only once.

All interested persons can find information about the exact area of each apartment (and rooms), prices, operating benefits and additional discounts, agent banks, and make the appropriate calculations by means of a mortgage calculator and a calculator preferential housing on the website of the Yasamal housing complex www.yasamal.mida.az.

The second project on construction of social housing will also be implemented in the capital city. Within the second project, houses are planned to be constructed in Surakhani district, near Hovsan settlement and cover an area of some 20 hectares.