NUEVO LEÓN, JALISCO, AND GUANAJUATO LEAD THE 2020 HOUSING PRODUCTION IN MEXICO

The shutdown of non-essential activities ordered by the Mexican government at the beginning of the pandemic didn’t affect housing as much as it was initially believed. The housing sector is still up and running, counting a total of 127,214 new properties in the Registro Único de Vivienda (National Register of Housing) in October 2020.

According to the statement released by Banco Inmobiliario Mexicano (BIM, Mexican Real Estate Bank), Nuevo León is the state that has built more new housing in Mexico for the seventh year in a row by accumulating 20,679 new real estate properties. Nuevo León is followed by Jalisco, registering a total of 11,409 new houses, whereas Guanajuato comes third with 8,679 properties.

Even if these numbers indicate a 30% decrease in the total production of housing compared to the ones registered in 2019, BIM emphasized that new housing is still in construction all around the country to satisfy the population’s demand. Last year, Sociedad Hipotecaria Fedaral (SIF, Federal Mortgage Company) estimated that about 851,100 housing credits would be requested in 2020, benefiting 3.3 million of people.

2020 has been a challenging year for the real estate industry because of the restrictions in both construction and commercialization of new projects with the purpose of suppress the effects of the pandemic in Mexico. BIM also reports that May was the less productive month for the construction of housing: only 10,319 new properties were built in the country. On the other hand, July recorded 246,000 housing actions, 157,00 for new ones and 89,000 for second-hand properties.

Housing prices also increased 5.8% nationally according to the Sociedad Hipotecaria Federal after comparing the second semesters of 2019 and 2020.

Víctor Manuel Requejo, president and founder of BIM, pointed out that housing production is going “better, still slow, but moving on” for the end of the year. He emphasized that even if construction is still far from the production levels in 2019, the general outlook now is more optimistic than the one in April. He also reminded that the real estate industry in Mexico is highly adaptable to new and extraordinary circumstances because of the adjustment and creations of new protocols after extreme weather conditions, natural phenomena, and changes in both federal regulations and government.

Nowadays, BIM is closing a year characterized by uncertainty and expectation for the impact of COVID-19 in the real estate industry. The organization expects to finance 10,000 properties by December 2020.

In the last seven years, the financing institution has consolidated itself as the sixth most important in the market by having a 7.4% participation in bridge loans and financing close to 120,000 new living spaces. Also, its client’s portfolio has 353 housing developers thus financing 33,000 properties that way.

BIM will support Mexican real estate project to promote the economic reactivation and minimize the negative effects of the pandemic in the country with an allocated budget of 7,926 million pesos.

Other Mexican cities that are increasing their housing offer, besides Guanajuato, Guadalajara, Zapopan, and Monterrey are Mexico City, Toluca, Querétaro, Puebla, Zacatecas, Durango, Gómez Palacio, Torreón, Saltillo, Chihuahua, Tampico, Tijuana, Mexicali, Hermosillo, Obregón, Los Mochis, Culiacán, Mazatlán y Tepic.

Keywords: housing, housing construction, Nuevo León, Jalisco, Guanajuato.