Buying a house in Cuba
HAVANA — Some people say that it’s easier to go to the moon than to buy a house in Cuba. You might think it’s an exaggeration, but the prices of real estate on the island and the mechanisms to buy it are so daunting that it’s easier to consider a journey to our white satellite.
The question of housing here is an unresolved issue and the real estate business is still in its infancy. However, as with almost everything in Cuba, there are various ways to achieve the dream of owning a house, either legally or under the table, where everything happens faster and more satisfactorily.
“It cost me 8,000 CUCs [convertible pesos, or 8,000 dollars],” says Yanet, who moved to Havana six years ago from Cacocum, in Holguín province. Her foreign boyfriend — whom she met via Facebook — helped her buy an apartment near the sports casino in the Cerro district.
The apartment is just a single room that serves as living room, mini-bath, kitchen and bedroom — a mattress that she stores away when visitors come. Despite the minimal space, Yanet says she’s happy.
“It’s mine. You have no idea what it’s like to own something here,” she says. She bought it “empty. All this — the appliances and water fittings — I had to install myself, so in effect it cost me twice the price.”
Ismael’s parents are government officials who did diplomatic duty for four years. When they returned to Cuba, they were given a letter of authority to buy an automobile for 30,000 CUCs. [1 CUC = $1] They sold that letter and used 14,000 CUCs to buy their son an apartment near the Santos Suárez district in the Diez de Octubre municipality. Like Yanet, Ismael spent a lot more than 14,000 CUCs to fix up the house.
“The process of buying or selling a house in Cuba is very bureaucratic,” said Irina, categorically. At age 27, she owns her house outright, which is rare in this country.
She told Progreso Weekly that her mother was in Venezuela on a medical mission for more than three years. The money earned in that mission, the money Irina got for her house in Marianao, and some cash savings allowed Irina to buy a larger house in Luyanó.
“First thing you do is check the prices on Revolico to get an idea of what the market will bear,” she says. [Revolico is Cuba’s version of eBay.] Prices range from 25,000 CUCs to 60,000 CUCs, depending on the zone and the dwelling’s features: the number of rooms, the size of the yard, whether it’s an apartment or a stand-alone house.
Once the buyer chooses a house and meets with the seller, he gets the Housing Institute in his municipality to assess the value of the house in national currency [Cuban pesos, or CUPs. 1 CUC equals 26.5 CUPs.]
“My house was assessed at 4,000 CUPs but I bought it on Revolico for 12,000 CUCs,” Irina says, unable to explain the discrepancy. “At the Housing Institute, they told me that they were going to fix that ‘maladjustment’ because they were losing too much money.”
Then, buyer and seller go to a notary to execute the transfer of property. From there, the buyer goes to the bank to deposit the assessed value of the dwelling.
“The troubles being when you have to pay the 5-percent tax on your house,” Irina says. “In my case, it was 200 CUPs. At the ONAT [National Office of Tax Management], you have to fill a form with technical requirements, but they never have enough forms. Besides, they won’t accept a form without the right formalities. Outside the ONAT you’ll find people who’ll fill those forms for you, for a fee of 1 CUC or 25 CUPs. Either you pay or you succumb in the bureaucratic labyrinth.”
“With that form, you return to the bank and deposit the amount. Two months later, you have to report to the Property Registry to register the home you purchased.”
Maladjustments and regulations
Who assigns the prices to the houses? Of all the subtopics, the issue of pricing is the thorniest, because the ordinary Cuban can hardly buy a house on his or her salary.
The fledgling real estate market in Cuba is assessed according to the zone. A one-room apartment in Miramar, Playa district, is much more expensive than a two-room apartment in San Miguel del Padrón, which is farther from downtown Havana.
Some web pages on the Internet that are not authorized by the government, such as Revolico and Cubísima, list houses for sale and purchase.
Another option on the Web is The Cuban Real-estate Portal. At the website Islasí, you can find a 5-room-4-bath apartment in the Playa district measuring 447 square meters [1,466 sq. ft.] for 341,000 CUCs.
A one-level, 3-room-2-bath house measuring 508 square meters [1,667 sq. ft.] in Alta Habana, Boyeros district, is priced at 130,000 CUCs.
A four-room house in Cárdenas, Matanzas province, costs 20,000 CUCs.
People like Yazel, who is trying to sell her house in Marianao, don’t understand such “maladjustments.” On what market is her house price based? The street market? she wonders. How is it possible to determine the value of the dwellings? she asks.
The crux is that the authorities assess a dwelling in national currency [CUPs] but the sale is made in freely convertible currency [CUCs], with a huge difference. According to legal norms, the reference value is multiplied by 4 in provincial capitals but by 1.5 in other municipalities.
This process is new because, after years of prohibitions in almost everything related to real estate, the “ban” was lifted in early 2012. The norms, published in the Official Gazette No. 35, Nov. 2, 2011, state that “one of the requirements will be the inscription of the dwelling in the Property Registry.”
The legal norms eliminated the prohibitions and established facilities for the sale and purchase of dwellings, donations and exchanges. They also established subsidies for the construction or repair of dwellings occupied by needy persons and dwellings damaged by hurricanes and other disasters. Credits were granted to people to perform construction with their own means.
At that time, the objective was “to eliminate prohibitions, expedite paperwork related to the transfer of real estate, and contribute to a voluntary reaccommodation of habitable spaces.”
The process created an unbridled increase in sales and purchases, as well as in the repair and construction of dwellings. However, this has not been enough to reduce the country’s housing deficit, which is particularly keen in cities like Havana and Santiago de Cuba, home to 1 out of 5 citizens.
To understand the “maladjustments” affecting the sale and purchase of homes in Cuba is a difficult task. It will take years to straighten up the twists, clarify the questions and turn the dream of “my own home” into reality.
[Photo of house at top is from the website Point 2 Cuba. It is a 3,767 square foot, 4-bedroom, 2-story home built in 1954 and is being advertised as standing a mere 200 meters from the Atlantic Ocean and situated in Miramar. Asking price: $298,000.]
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