Azmy*, an Arabic teacher, packed his bags and left to work in the Gulf around 25 years ago. He built up some good savings and wondered what to do with the money. He was surrounded by recommendations to invest in real estate, perhaps in Dubai or Turkey, for the best returns.
But Azmy chose to sell his assets and, grouping his life savings together with those of some friends from back home, he invested in the Beit al-Watan project, a government-launched real estate scheme designed for Egyptians abroad, granting them a route to acquire plots of land in prime sites across the country in exchange for dollar payments.
The scheme is among several unconventional attempts the government has made to maximize the foreign currency pumped back into the national economy by the diaspora — around 12 million Egyptian expatriates. Maximizing and diversifying the routes available for remittances has become even more urgent since a foreign exchange crisis hit Egypt in 2022.
The Beit al-Watan project stands alongside a car import initiative launched in 2022, where you can buy a car from abroad tax-free if you make a dollar deposit in a national bank.
But as with the car import scheme, Beit al-Watan has descended into profiteering, with brokers ultimately buying up as much as 50 percent of the lands offered and either reselling quickly to take home a profit or joining the growing segment of real estate development companies springing up all over the country to speculate rather than provide affordable or necessary housing.
Mada Masr spoke to several Egyptians residing in Gulf countries, marketeers in small real estate and contracting firms operating in the areas where Beit al-Watan offers plots, namely in East Cairo, along with sources from the Association of Real Estate Developers and the New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA), to understand the issue.
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Ten months ago, Azmy and his friends paid the government US$80,000 to acquire land in the Beit al-Watan project’s tenth phase.
But getting land out of the project is barely a priority for many of those who enter the scheme.
In fact, several sources, both expats and brokers who have bought into the Beit al-Watan scheme to get land en masse, told Mada Masr that the project is used primarily as a quick, high-yield investment scheme.
The process is as follows.
As part of the project, the government, namely the Housing Ministry under its New Urban Communities Authority, opens land offerings, advertising plots of land across the country. These plots have so far been located in 24 cities, with new cities within greater Cairo such as Sheikh Zayed, New Cairo and New Damietta accounting for around 55 percent of them.
For interested applicants, the process is a little like applying to university. Those who meet the requirements — Egyptian, living abroad and in possession of dollars — can apply for one or more plots of land.
The applicant chooses the land plot from among the options offered by the government on an electronic platform that maps the areas, the division of plots, their numbers, value and required down payment.
After choosing their desired location, the applicant gets an initial reservation code that will serve as their identification number throughout the application process.
Then, the New Urban Communities Development Authority opens the window for advance payments. Applicants, whether expats or brokers, then use their reservation code to submit their down-payment for the plots they want to reserve.
Two or three months later, the Egyptian Central Bank issues a report ranking all applicants, from those who paid first to those who paid last. NUCA then makes final land allocations based on the rankings, sorting through around 100 to 500 applicants per day. If several applicants applied for the same spot, the applicant whose payment reached the project’s designated bank first will be rewarded the allocation.
Other applicants can review and select remaining spots. If they chose a plot that no one else applied for and it is worth the same or less than their initial deposit, it will be allocated to them.
If they are not interested in any of the alternatives, they can skip the allocation phase and wait for the supplementary offerings — land plots that, while previously allocated, were withdrawn from other applicants who failed to make payments or comply with licensing and construction requirements. Land plots that no buyers wanted in previous phases and newly added plots are also included in these additional offerings.
After the allocation process is complete, expats usually wait for the plot to be handed over. This can take a long time, with the state required first to complete land development works and establish services such as roads, electricity, water networks and other essential infrastructure.
A minority of applicants will wait, receive the land and build a family house.
But it’s at this stage that most people back out. Perhaps they receive offers from small-scale contractors who want to buy the plots in exchange for a reimbursement of the initial deposit plus a buyout fee, known as an “over.” In this case, the contractor will assume responsibility for paying the remaining installments, receive the land, begin building and issuing permits, and will eventually sell the property and land — a chain of events that allows the original applicants to make quick returns on their deposit, which they consider a high-yield investment rather than a land purchase. Reimbursements and the “overpayment” are calculated based on the location of the land in question, starting at LE1 million and going up to LE8 million for popular areas like East Cairo, Sheikh Zayed or New Damietta.
But sources from the Association of Real Estate Developers, some expats and several real estate marketers explain that a large number of the applicants are actually brokers, who count as “Egyptians abroad” as far as Beit al-Watan is concerned and represent between 50 to 90 percent of the program’s total applicants.
If the applicant is a broker, they can make a much bigger profit. While some also sell out to contractors, others can use the land they acquired through the state scheme to become contractors themselves, either informally or through the establishment of small firms.
The brokers are visible on Facebook real estate groups, selling units built on the land they initially brokered through the Beit al-Watan project. These contractors cash in on the real estate boom, buying in bulk through the state’s scheme to sell at inflated prices.
Others seek full refunds — or partial ones if they had transferred more than the required deposit for the land they were interested in — and now find themselves going in circles.
One of these applicants recounts to Mada Masr the difficult journey to try and get a refund.
The applicant took a week off to return to Egypt and spent two days going back and forth between Cairo and the New Capital to meet NUCA officials in an attempt to determine the bank account his initial payment would be refunded to.
His trips were futile. Every NUCA employee he met advised him to send an email for any inquiries, but he — along with several other sources who spoke to Mada Masr — said their messages went unanswered.
Controversy over the refunds had reached such a level that talk show host Amr Adib devoted a lengthy segment of his MBC program Al-Hekaya in October to the frustration expressed by concerned expats about their Beit al-Watan investments.
Adib said thousands of people were waiting to be reimbursed, but Housing Ministry spokesperson Amr Khattab only told him that those wishing to reclaim their money could email via the officially established mechanism for processing refunds.
A source at the Association of Real Estate Developers tells Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that controversy over refunds is often stirred up by contractors and brokers with good connections to influential figures, as a way to pressure the government into releasing plots in prime locations such as New Cairo, Sheikh Zayed or New Damietta.
A NUCA source speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity says the government did at times yield to pressure and release plots before their development was complete.
Once contractors and brokers have title to the land, they can do what they wish with it to achieve the highest possible returns. In such cases, the source continues, buildings are constructed and handed over, but owners are then unable to sell them due to the lack of basic services.
From his side, urban researcher Yehia Shawkat says this pattern turns buying into a tool for investment and speculation, short circuiting the essential social element that guides residents’ relocation and community building.
The NUCA’s move toward “dollarization” has pushed up land and property prices, creating fierce competition between the purchasing power of Egyptians abroad or foreign buyers and locals earning in Egyptian pounds. This, Shawkat says, produces an unfair effect and undermines access to housing.
This view was echoed by marketers in small real estate firms operating in the Beit al-Watan areas, namely in New Cairo, one of whom says that “most people buy in order to resell and collect the overpayment” rather than live in the area.
The NUCA source says that remaining plots in New Cairo are now limited, adding that the authority has long-term plans for land development that ensure it is geographically balanced.
“Not all land development can be concentrated in Greater Cairo, particularly its eastern areas,” the NUCA source says.
But several real estate marketers and expats say that most Egyptians living abroad pin their hopes on being allocated a plot in prime locations in Greater Cairo that will achieve the quickest and most substantial returns.
In October, the Housing Ministry launched a supplementary offering including 6,800 land plots, with most located in areas outside Cairo, either in Aswan or other Upper Egypt governorates.
Over the past decade, land has increasingly become a major source of rentier income for the government amid a national scarcity of foreign currency revenue.
The state’s strategy has ranged from mega-deals in which vast tracts of land were leased for development — such as Ras al-Hikma, spanning more than 170 square meters and sold for $35 billion — to the sale of smaller plots of 400 to 800 square meters to Egyptian residing abroad in exchange for dollars.
Housing Minister Sherif al-Sherbiny said last year that Beit al-Watan has generated nearly $7.3 billion for the state. But it’s harder to evaluate the long-term legacy of the scheme, which includes an increasingly inflated housing market and the growing segment of empty and unleasable housing units.
Shawkat, as well as AUC economic researcher Amr Adly, argue that it is crucial to explore investment plans for the savings of Egyptians abroad — who seek income after retirement — through the establishment of investment funds that do not focus on real estate only.
As for Azmy and his friends, who were hoping to build a home in Egypt for their future, they are yet to receive the land they chose, whether it was for profit or for a future home.
*Pseudonym used to protect source identity.
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