Iraqi refugees spur housing boom

Ronnie Mokhles Harmoz, an Iraqi Christian, is living in a basement with his two children and wife. He pays 10,000 Syrian pounds, or about $200 a month, for the apartment that, like many basements now occupied by Iraqi refugees, wouldn't have even been lived in before the war. And if it was, he says, it would have rented for half as much.

Unable to work under Syrian law, Mr. Harmoz is relying on his parents to send him money from abroad. In Syria, Iraqis often rely on their families to send them money, since they are unable to work inside the country.

"We wanted to find a better house and all we could find were apartments for 20,000 Syrian pounds [$400]," says Harmoz. "My aunts who moved here four years ago are paying 4,000 Syrian pounds [$80] for a better apartment in the same area."

Ali Laith, who works at Al Mona Real Estate Agency in Garamanah, a Druze and Christian suburb that has attracted mostly middle class Christian Iraqis, says prices will continue rising.

"A two-bedroom apartment that used to rent for 4,000 Syrian pounds [$80] before the fall of Baghdad is now renting for 10,000 Syrian pounds [$200.] And now there's a demand all year-round, whereas before the demand was just in the summer. Now people are coming in the winter as well."

Earlier this year, the International Organization for Migration estimated that at least 250,000 Iraqis were living in Syria, but other estimates have the population closer to 500,000. In Jordan, there are an estimated 400,000 Iraqis.

In the Shiite suburb of Sit Zeinab just outside of Damascus, bus loads of Iraqis arrive daily. Many are coming only for the summer vacation (Damascus is much cooler than the Persian Gulf states in the summer), others are here until conditions improve in their country.

While some Syrians are indeed profiting from the Iraq war by renting their homes for higher prices and moving to cheaper places or building new apartments above their homes, other Syrians are no longer able to afford rents or buy homes in areas where they have lived for years.

Some Syrians also complain that their neighborhoods have become dominated by Iraqis, who have also brought in the problem of rising prostitution. This year, in order to control the rising prices, the Syrian government instituted a law that prohibits Iraqis from buying homes.

But, for some, the law was too late to stem the tide of rising home prices.

"An apartment for 2 million now sells for 3 million here in Garamanah," says Itidal Iskander, who works as a translator for a company and has been living in Garamanah for 18 years.

"My sister wanted to buy a home. Before she would look at homes worth 1 million [Syrian pounds] and it was possible. Now 3 million is impossible," he says.

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