House hunt no. 2

The post on 16 September 2007 is actually an older one, but I felt I wanted to post it anyway because it records my pet whinges about accommodation.
By the way, this blog was meant to be kept up regularly, but many issues conspire against me.
For the last eight weeks we have lived out of three suitcases, and it is not over yet. We stayed in Shahrerey (or Shabdolazim), to the south of Tehran, until Friday 7 September, during which time Hossein and I often travelled to Tehran on house-hunting and got back late at night. Thank God for the two sisters-in-law: Mansoureh, in Shahrerey, who cooked for everyone and looked after our children during these absences, and Mahboubeh, who lives in Abbas-abad, to the north of the centre of Tehran, and where Hossein and I pit-stopped for noon prayers, lunch and quick siesta.

Open brackets here, to explain the rental system in Iran. One way is paying monthly rent, as in the rest of the world; but there is another system, which I have only come across in Iran, that of rahn. The word rahn can be translated as mortgage, but it is not mortgage as we know it. This is how it works: the tenant pays the landlord a lump sum of money, roughly one-fifth of the total value of the property and moves in. At the end of the rental term, the landlord returns the same amount to the tenant, who only moves out upon receipt of the money. This is a useful system for landlords who may run a business or may have borrowed from the bank in order to buy the property, or who can live off the interest of this (often considerable) sum. Up until recently, when the interest rates were high, this option was attractive for many landlords.
A third way is a combination of rahn and monthly rental, which is now increasingly popular. Close brackets.

Ten years ago, we took our flat on a rahn of 5 million tumans (£7,100 at 1997 rates, £2,670 at today’s rates), so we thought that even with the meteoric rise in property prices and the rate change of pound to tuman (700 tumans to the pound in 1997, 1870 today), we would be able to find a flat to rent. Around Abbas-abad, our old neighbourhood, we were prepared to pay a rahn of 70 million tumans (£37,000) but no rent. But because interest rates have recently fallen, many landlords prefer a combination of rahn and rent. The nearest we got to renting a flat was for a rahn of 40 million (£22,000) and a monthly rent of 1 million tumans (£535), but we didn’t want to commit to a monthly rent until we were settled and had a regular income. That was back in early August.

After days of fruitless search, an estate agent who knew Hossein since our last time here showed us a flat whose owner wanted to sell quickly. It was at a very good price, £230 million (£123,000), in a quiet residential street in the area we wanted, looking over to a small park, with windows on three sides of the building. To cut a long story short, we signed on it, and had to sell some other property, including the Shabdolazim flat, to pay for it. But we still haven’t moved in yet, because it is being refurbished, so my hope of being settled in by the 23 September, when schools start, was proven vain.

At least we are now nearer the new flat. On 7 September we moved to temporary accommodation no.2, a small flat in the street next to the new one. This is an improvement on the Shabdolazim flat: it’s to the north of the centre of Tehran, with a view of the Alborz, the mountains to the north of Tehran, and within much easier access to the children’s school. And Hossein can pop in to the new flat and check up on the builders.