Mexico City to Promote New Homes Construction

Housing is becoming an issue for Mexico City inhabitants, whose demand for affordable homes is surpassing supply. Local authorities are working on a plan to address this issue and give certainty to developers, with the aim to foster construction of new homes in strategic areas. 

According to Fadlala Akabani, Mexico City Minister for Economic Development, foreign investment attraction could help the local government in its goal to increasing supply and reducing the housing gap, which has become larger in recent years. 

Currently, developers are building over 14,000 new homes in Mexico City, which fall short to the 60,000 homes that are demanded. Akabani said that the city must reduce that gap and construct more homes, but for this strategy to be successful, strategic construction is necessary, not just in central areas. He stressed that there must be a balance in order to lower prices, especially in the market of social interest homes. “We need to balance the real estate market to create a home supply in all municipalities, including Tlahuac, Iztapalapa, and Xochimilco,” Akabani added. 

Akabani said the past administration left the city with a huge housing disorder that has caused delays in the regularization of houses and urban infrastructure reconversion to have available spaces for real estate projects. “The previous administration did not develop any infrastructure project. We want to attract investment to Xochimilco, Tlahuac and Milpa Alta; (to do this) we need to fix roads and create appropriate public transportation like Cablebús in Iztapalapa and Gustavo A. Madero or the elevated trolleybus to be inaugurated on Sept. 11,” Akabani added. 

According to the report “Confronting the Housing Challenge in Latin America Part I,” published by MIT’s Urban Economics Lab and the Colombia-based proptech La Haus, if Mexico wants to reduce the housing gap, it must build over 800,000 new homes per year for 20 years, while focusing on the progressive reduction of informal construction.