Between dwindling supply and booming demand, the Moroccan real estate market experienced mixed developments in 2024. This imbalance between supply and demand has led to an increase in prices, making access difficult. housing for middle-income households. According to updated data from Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) and the National Agency for Land Conservation, Cadastre and Mapping (ANCFCC), residential transactions fell by 17.3% in the first quarter of the year. year, a drop of 17.5% for apartments, 18% for houses and 4.2% for villas.
Read: Real estate in Morocco: record demand in the face of collapsing supply
“Today, the observation, albeit bitter, is that there have been a lot of stocks on the market for several years. This proves that demand is scarce. This crisis affects almost all segments, both new and old, with the exception of luxury residential which still finds buyers,” declared ChallengeMohamed Lahlou, president of the Regional Union of Real Estate Agencies (URAI) Casablanca-Settat. According to him, the decline in household purchasing power and the increase in the cost of bank credit explain this situation. According to BAM, the average rate applied to real estate loans was 4.36% in the first quarter of 2024. Also, banks have tightened the conditions for granting real estate loans.
“On the one hand, interest rates have increased and banks no longer finance real estate acquisitions 100%, and, on the other, the decline in purchasing power makes saving almost impossible for households. It is difficult to revive the real estate market in these conditions,” Lahlou is alarmed. Faced with this situation, the government launched the housing assistance program in January 2024 which, according to Lahlou, “today represents an alternative”. The president of the URAI also invites the Executive to “also review taxation, in particular the reduction of registration fees, charging the TPI, recovering undeveloped land…”
-Read: Housing assistance in Morocco: a program popular with MREs
To emerge from this crisis, we should “focus on strengthening demand as a priority,” suggests Zakia Medkor, technical risk underwriting manager at Allianz Maroc, calling among other things to “restore consumer confidence in the quality of built goods, to “put in place a Construction Code and ensure its application”, as well as that of the law requiring insurance for construction sites and ten-year civil liability. The expert also recommends facilitating administrative procedures for first-time buyers, and “subsidizing and developing a product adapted in terms of cost, needs and financing for different social groups, particularly the middle class. »
Lahlou also insisted on the urgency of establishing a regulatory framework for real estate intermediation. “It was since February 14, 2014 that we proposed the bill, and, since 2017, the file has been in the government secretariat,” he recalled, before adding: “It is urgent to activate the bill concerning our profession, because real estate agents will be required to support future buyers within the framework of the new housing assistance program, and we cannot allow just anyone to ensure this intermediation. »
