YANGON — The Department of Urban and Housing Development under the Ministry of Construction will sell, for the first time since the new government took office, more than 1,200 affordable apartments in Yangon Region under the arrangement of the regional government.
“The regional government has formed a team to sell the apartments. The team will include officials from our department as well as other authorities,” said director U Yu Khaing of the Yangon branch of the Urban and Housing Development Department.
“We’ll announce soon when and how we’ll sell those apartments,” he added.
The apartments—categorized as low-cost and reasonably priced structures, respectively—for sale are in Kanaung Housing in Dagon Seikkan Township, Yuzana Garden Housing Phase-1, and Shwe Lin Pan Housing Phases 2 and 3 in Hlaing Tharyar Township, according to director U Yu Khaing.
More than 700 low-cost units and about 500 reasonably priced apartments will be up for grabs, he added.
“We’ll sell the apartments in Shwe Lin Pan Housing Phases 2 and 3 first. There are about 1,000 apartments there. They will be sold according to the plan of the Yangon regional government,” he said.
The prices of the low-cost apartments start at 9.8 million kyats and prices of apartments at lower and ground levels are a little bit higher, standing between 12 and 12.5 million kyats, according to the Urban and Housing Development Department.
Most of the buildings will have four floors with six apartments on each level. The reasonably priced apartments will be more spacious, and the prices will be between 20 and 40 million kyats.
A total of 2,208 apartment units are being built in Yangon Region, and the regional government is planning to sell more than 1,200 of them that have been completed so far. Retired civil servants, retirees and the homeless will be favored to purchase the apartments, which can be paid for in installments.
Those wishing to buy the apartments have to open a bank account at the Construction and Housing Development Bank (CHDB), and upon saving up to 30 percent of the price of the apartment, buyers can get 10 year loans from the bank to pay the remaining 70 percent in installments, said U Hein Wai Naung, assistant manager of the bank.
“They can start living at the apartments after paying 30 percent. They will get ownership after they pay in full,” he said.
Under the U Thein Sein government, the regional government sold 527 low-cost apartments in Shwe Lin Pan Housing in Hlaing Tharyar Township.
Meanwhile, the Construction Ministry is also planning to reduce the savings amount from 30 percent to 20 percent, as well as increase the loan period from 10 to 15 years.
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
