Politics and the announced bad weather do not diminish the interest in buying a house: adaptations and relocations are offered in case of emergency

Housing construction processes have accelerated in some companies ahead of the arrival of the rains heralded by the El Niño phenomenon. Those who are looking for it are also waiting to see if the change of government will affect the situation in the country and affect the conclusion of the purchase.

Mishell Pérez, Darwin Satán and Carlos Torres arrived with these concerns at the fair of the Bank of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (Biess), which is being held until this Sunday, September 3, at the Guayaquil Convention Center and where more than 30 real estate projects are being promoted. They are part of more than 10,000 visitors expected in the five days of the fair.

Real estate agents have prepared for these customer concerns and offer adjustments, relocations and are open to hearing any case: “no one is exempt from economic problems, from illness,” they say.

Biess will hold two housing fairs between August and September; one will be in Guayaquil and the other in Quito

Mishell wants to buy a house with her partner, now they rent and save. During the tour of the fair, he found out about benefits such as discounts on the price of the ticket, about 2,000 dollars, and finishing touches to the house that “they don’t give otherwise”. They are determined to buy a home for security reasons, but an economic problem could prevent them from continuing the process due to the political environment affecting the economy. “These would be the reasons why we would think that we would not buy a house, because of economic problems and depending on how the situation in the country unfolds,” he said.

Darwin and Carlos also agreed that safety is one of the reasons that lead them to look for a home in a private urbanization. For the former, “the main thing is to save money because of the upcoming El Niño phenomenon. We do not know how strong the consequences will be for food, health and work. I don’t want to go through the way I went through the pandemic, we weren’t ready and when it came we didn’t know what to do.”

In view of these cases, real estate agents offer some alternatives to provide peace of mind to their potential clients in the event of possible flooding.

Cristian Jaime, business director of the Los Prados urbanization, pointed out that they cover these “types of problems”. As for the flooding, they have a brand new sewage system, so he believes that there will be no “inconvenience”. “It is about an urban project where we kept the issue of high loading. It is located almost at the foot of the road, which makes the drainage much more fluid”

He also emphasized that as a facility for the client, they have the possibility of delivery to the home address “long-term” and with which they can move to another stage and thus pay the entrance fee in the long term, so that they will pay little by little. No one is exempt from illness, from economic problems, we think of all this as a project. In Los Prados, they offer homes from $78,500 to $100,000.

The head of the credit department of the city of Durán, Diana Gualpa, indicated that they have the option of adjusting or refinancing to pay the ticket.

“We have cases where the client lost his job, his overtime hours were reduced, due to the El Niño phenomenon this usually happens often. Then we can refinance the client’s entry, that is, if he paid a monthly fee of $170, we can adjust that fee to the new budget, keeping the lot he reserved so he doesn’t lose his location,” he explained. In Durán City, homes range from $43,990 to $89,000.

Security is increasingly a priority when buying a home and is almost as important as price

For his part, the commercial consultant of the urbanization of La Gran Vittoria, Joffre Castillo, commented that the client’s case is heard, they are aware that they may experience situations of catastrophic diseases or that are related to the insecurity that the country is going through. .

“In these cases, the real estate agency always gave the client room to wait for a while until the situation passed,” he said. Gran Vittoria has homes from $83,500 to $118,000.

Effects for and against

In this context, the executive director of the Association of Real Estate Developers of Ecuador (Apiva), Jaime Rumbea, pointed out that people’s interest in acquiring a home “is not affected by the result of the election”, but that Yes, there was “some nervousness about what could happen”. . Now he believes that the results “showed a certain level of balance in the arrangement of political forces and that is a good sign regardless of who wins the presidential candidate, it is a good sign of the country’s stability in terms of that arrangement, the representation of forces”.

The favorable expectation is that the tax reform that came into force in July has freed up workers’ incomes and this is “great news that is expected to be capitalized in the context of the fair”.

On the other hand, the climatic factor still puts them on alert. Companies are speeding up processes that require a dry climate, in terms of infrastructure, roads, canals, etc., which is very difficult to conclude when the rains start. Rumbea said that “if they manage to carry out these processes before the heavy rains come, the eventual El Niño, there should not be major disruptions in commercial processes after a day, a few days of delay that happens in any place with very heavy rain”.

Apive has just signed an agreement with the Association of Private Banks of Ecuador, which allows monitoring the credit needs of more than 10,000 households that have contracts for the construction of new homes throughout the country: houses that are under construction, that were contracted in the plans in the previous months and that have to be delivered in El Niño months. This payment need will be monitored to manage the risk that it is late or unavailable.

Questions and answers Elections 2023