Last April, ACOPROVI, together with the Association of Housing Developers and Builders of Cibao (APROCOVICI) and the Dominican Chamber of Construction (CADOCON), asked the government to study a series of proposals with the aim of preserving the right of more Dominicans to access decent housing.
SANTO DOMINGO- The constant increases in the price of construction materials have caused housing prices to skyrocket by almost 100% in recent years.
Eliseo Cristopher, president of the Dominican Confederation of Small and Medium Construction Companies (Copymecon), told Diario Libre that homes that cost between 1,750,000 and 1,800,000 pesos in 2018 now reflect increases of nearly 100% due to the impact of the raw materials used by the sector.
“Those same homesthat we are selling for 3,500,000 and 3,700,000 pesos are the same homes that we sold in 2018 for 1,800,000 or 1,750,000 pesos,” the leader explained.
In statements to El Inmobiliario last month, the General Manager of Constructora Rodos, engineer Guido Rosario, warned that if the increases in the materials used to build buildings continue, the price of homes could increase by up to 7%, a figure that would have already increased, given that the festival of increases has not stopped in recent weeks.
Products such as steel and its derivatives, cement, and other essential construction materials have maintained an upward price spiral since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with increases ranging from 5% to 30% in some cases. Both the pandemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine have triggered these price hikes.
Cristopher told Diario Libre that, at the beginning of 2021, small developers, "assuming some costs," placed and delivered the houses at 2,250,000 and 2,249,000 pesos, "but right now the sales that are going to come out of those homes are 3,500,000 and 3,700,000 pesos, with an extremely wide increase.".
He indicated that at Copymecon they understand that they must continue to seek support mechanisms and positioning for the sector.
“We were saying that it’s important to find ways to provide soft loans for small construction companies. It’s very important, because without that, we’re going to have a sector that falls much further behind,” he said.
The president of the Dominican Association of Housing Builders and Promoters (Acoprovi), Jorge Montalvo, reported last Sunday in a meeting with the Central Bank, that as of today there are over 35,000 homes on offer throughout the country, which represents 82% of the total that is being built.
Proposalto the Government
Last April, ACOPROVI, together with the Association of Housing Developers and Builders of Cibao (APROCOVICI) and the Dominican Chamber of Construction (CADOCON), asked the government to study a series of proposals with the aim of preserving the right of more Dominicans to access decent housing.
The construction sector associations proposed monetary and financial initiatives aimed at creating conditions to promote access to financing facilities with interim loans at competitive rates for real estate project developers.
They suggested low-interest mortgage loans and a reduction of the transfer tax for buyers of new homes from 3% to 2%, for a period of one year,” they suggest.
“In order to diversify purchases and contracts, it was proposed to evaluate the possibility of conducting open public tenders of a national and international nature by the State, with the intention of opening the gap for the purchase of certain construction products necessary for the development of public sector projects.”.
