Any Myanmar citizen will be eligible to apply for a flat in Yangon City Development Committee’s (YCDC) recent Bo Ba Htoo ‘fair price’ housing complex in North Dagon, the committee said.
Applications to purchase an apartment can be submitted to the YCDC Engineering Department until January 31. Previously only government employees could apply for such apartments.
A total of 90 apartments of 972 square feet (sq ft) size are available for K34.7 million ($35,400) each, while 6 apartments of 877sq ft are up for grabs at K32.9 million ($33,570), 330 apartments of 614sq ft at K25.5 million ($26,000) and 22 apartments of 565sq ft at K23.7 million ($24,100) per flat.
If the applicant is a government employee she has to be in the service for at least 20 years at the time of submitting the application. Other applicants have to be at least over 25-years and hold a National Registration Card (NRC). Recommendation letters from respective departments are needed if the applicant is a government employee or a company staff.
“An applicant can purchase an apartment through either bank loans or installments. For bank loans, the loan duration will be four years,” an YCDC source said.
“If a buyer sells or rents the house within five years of purchasing, we won’t take any legal action but we will reoccupy the apartment. These apartments are meant for needy people,” he added.
A family has to have at least K300,000 ($300) monthly income to be able to purchase such apartments, and a family with relatives should be able to earn about K700,000 ($700), he said. If the applicant is a retired government employee, payment can be made from pension funds on an installment basis, the source added.
Ma Aye Aye, who works at a private company, said: “I have bought an application. But I think it would be very difficult to get an apartment here because of the competition. They should give it to the people who really need one.”
YCDC has been carrying out several “low cost housing” projects in Yangon over the last two years in a bid to tackle the city’s rising populace and give respite to the low-income people from the sweltering property prices in the country’s commercial hub, which has seen massive speculative surge in its real estate prices in recent years.
However, apartments at those “low cost housing” projects were still above the means of poor population, and the authorities changed those projects’ names to “fair price housing” after drawing flak.
