Housing in Venezuela Could Be About to Get Bad, Really Bad

[Judi Lynn]

Housing in Venezuela Could Be About to Get Bad, Really Bad

By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim, teleSUR
Sunday, Jan 17, 2016

Venezuela's housing situation could be about to get worse. Much worse, if the new right-wing National Assembly gets its way. Among the first concrete demands to emerge from the right-wing has been a call for people who have received housing to also receive property deeds. Just days after the new National Assembly began being sworn in, the proposal was presented on January 12 by Julio Borges, from the majority right-wing coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).

Borges has claimed this major reform to public housing would basically be a “democratization of property,” giving residents greater control over their lives. Borges and other advocates of the reform claim it will stimulate construction in the housing sector, easing the housing problems in many of Venezuela's major cities.

None of this is even vaguely true.

Venezuela's Housing Problem

First of all, it's important to note that Venezuela's housing program is quite unique. The housing units Borges wants to hand over to residents were all constructed under the Great Venezuelan Housing Mission (GMVV). The initiative has long been one of the flagship social missions of the socialist government, with poor families being prioritized for getting their own homes.

The housing mission began as a disaster relief program, but has since emerged as pillar of government efforts to alleviate Venezuela's housing problems.

Almost all of Venezuela's major cities have been facing housing shortages for decades. Indeed, among the first sights that hits most visitors to Caracas are the barrios – shanty towns crawling up the hillsides of the city's peripheries. These barrios had become a permanent fixture of the capital by the 1980s, when poor Venezuelans from the countryside flocked to the city in search of work. These poverty stricken rural migrants were totally priced out of Caracas' housing market, forcing them into substandard dwellings. The situation has dramatically improved in recent years, but the housing market is still a major source of frustration for ordinary Venezuelans. There is a severe shortage of rental properties in many cities including Caracas, and average prices there are now above the minimum wage. Even middle class Venezuelans can struggle to find decent, affordable homes.

Given these circumstances, it's no surprise the Housing Mission has been extremely popular.

Through the mission, residents are given low cost homes under a permanent lease system. The houses are built by the state and / or local communes and communal councils. The residents own the home permanently to live in, but are generally barred from sale.

More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_72798.shtml

[center]

Julio Borges[/center]

[Judi Lynn]

1. Much more detail about Venezuela's potential housing crisis

Much more detail about Venezuela's potential housing crisis

By Arturo Rosales
Monday, Jan 18, 2016
[center] - - - [/center]
There is far more to this threat to public social housing than described in this article. First of all, the people who lost their homes and belongings in the floods and were living in refugee camps for months and sometimes years, were actually given free-of-charge homes. There were about 120,000 families involved. The rest have special mortgages at a 7% rate, payable over 30 years and directly geared to the family’s ability to pay. These are units that belong to the family and not to any individual.

The families are owners (leaseholders) as stated in the law signed by Chávez in April 2011 and are allowed to sell after 5 years, but only to the National Housing Association so that the unit can be assigned to another family in need, normally with children, and the unit does not enter into the private speculative housing market.

Currently, these units were “sold” to the owners at around Bs 1,5 million but similar properties on the private market are priced anywhere between Bs. 25 – Bs. 30 million. It is easy to understand why this is a vote grabber as Borges’s plans appeal to the lowest common denominator of the human psyche – greed. In fact,when it was announced that the MUD had won control of the national Assembly on the night of December 6th, a huge cheer could be heard from these socialist built housing units on the Avenida Bolivar in Central Caracas!

Borges did not present actual legislation on 12 January, but a proposal as the actual law was not ready. The kicker is that it is the Mortgage Departments of the private banks writing this law because if these housing units enter into the private sector, then families who have a right to the deeds to be able to sell on the speculative market will be obliged to accept commercial mortgages from the private banks. Monthly payments could balloon and I, for one, am certain that just as the private banks were forced to abandon their Indexed or Mexican credits back in 2000, pay mortgages back, or recalculate the mortgages, they will now be rubbing their hands at a potential one million or more homes being forced to take commercial mortgages under their conditions.

More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_72806.shtml

[Bacchus4.0]

2. Sounds like it would be better if they have the title and could sell if they wanted to nt

[FBaggins]

3. "Really bad" for Maduro's ability to hold citizens' homes as ransom for votes.

Not bad at all for the citizens themselves.

"I wanted to build 500,000 units of social lodging next year, but I am doubting this now. I'm doubting this not because I can't build them, I CAN build them. But I asked you for support and you didn't give that support to me" - Maduro

Yeah... that's a real socialist. Not a communist dictator.