Government’s Real Estate Stimulus Measures Fall Short of Industry Expectations

The reduction of registration fees is one of the measures proposed by the government, reports La Vie éco. For Taoufik Kamil, president of the FNPI, the provision relating to the halving of registration fees aims to reduce the tax cost for buyers wishing to purchase a property to live in. According to him, this measure alone will not be able to contribute to the recovery of the real estate sector as the players wish.

"This measure should have been proposed with brackets allowing for example a buyer of a property worth 3 MDH to pay a reduced rate on the first bracket up to 2.5 MDH and a full rate on the remaining 500,000 DH," he suggested, indicating that the implementation of other measures is necessary. "The implementation of new strategies aimed at a concerted urbanism with the operators is necessary and this, in order to propose land at a more adequate cost and also an urban environment allowing a decent life of our fellow citizens," proposes the president of the federation.

For his part, the economist and real estate specialist, Driss Effina believes that "the measure taken by BAM to lower its key rate and which would be passed on to the debit rates for both promoters and buyers would have more impact than the provisions taken within the framework of this project". He is convinced that: "this, combined with cash facilities and relaunch credits, would largely contribute to the revival of the sector, rather than these insignificant measures".

He proposes among other things to eliminate or reduce the property transfer fees to 1% and to grant the middle class the tax advantages of the social segment, partially or totally for a period of one or two years, for housing up to 1MDH. Similarly, he calls for the suspension of the real estate price benchmark over the next 2 years to allow the market to function naturally, both upwards and downwards.