Reading Time: 3 minutes The disruption was illuminating. When the knock first came, Georges Chehwane tried not to interrupt his interview with Executive. The matter, however, demanded the chairman of Plus Holding’s attention. A client wanted to buy an apartment in a building Plus Properties is promoting, but needed flexibility in payment scheduling. It wasn’t long before Chehwane was…
Charting a path
Reading Time: 9 minutes Decades of research has shown that affordable housing is a cornerstone of urban livability and wellbeing. Beyond providing shelter, housing is a platform for improving health, education, economic activity and social stability. Affordable, good quality and stable housing is often associated with less stress and better overall health. Similarly, satisfactory housing can improve school performance…
PCH: An explainer
Reading Time: 4 minutes The housing loans that commercial banks offer with the support of the Public Corporation for Housing (PCH), colloquially known as Iskan loans or PCH loans, are engineered according to a smart financing formula that is advantageous for borrowers but nothing short of complicated. When a first time home buyer with Lebanese nationality and residency has…
A place all their own
Reading Time: 5 minutes So that every family may own a home. This, according to the chair-director general of Lebanon’s Public Corporation for Housing (PCH), Rony Lahoud, is the overarching idea under which the understaffed government agency pursues its mission of examining an endless stream of loan applications from Lebanese citizens. “It is hard work, but it’s amazing at…
Striking a balance
Reading Time: 6 minutes “This law is a step aimed at achieving justice, and after 30 years without a law this step has become necessary and inevitable,” said MP Robert Ghanem, chair of the Parliament’s Administration and Justice Committee, according to the minutes of April’s rent law meeting. The committee had met to amend the law after the Constitutional…
Renting on Lebanon’s black market
Reading Time: 6 minutes Sitting in the gloom of the single room that is now her family’s home, shadows from the small candle placed between us — the room’s only light — played against the wall as Asmar spoke of her flight from Syria. Asmar, who preferred not to give her surname, is just one of the estimated one…
Mismatch made in the heavens
Reading Time: 8 minutes As cities go, Beirut has every reason to be regarded as the grand dame of regional urbanity — a proud dowager that stands out among Arab metropolises as queen of style and savoir vivre. But she is filling out like a high school senior, especially around the upper floors of the priciest residential towers. Those…
Walking towards the light
Reading Time: 2 minutes Instead of hoping for good political news in Lebanon today, property hunters should just trust their fortunes. The country is much more stable than it looks, and smart money has every chance to find good real estate buys. At the same time, there are few bright spots for sellers. The uncertainty in the upper end…