Property for sale in El Mourouj

El Mourouj was drawn up in the 1980s to house Tunis wage earners who could no longer afford to buy in the city, and forty years on the delegation still plays that role. Teachers, bank employees, managers from the Ben Arous industrial zone, families back from abroad: all are after the same thing, a home to buy at a still affordable price, half an hour from the centre, in a cite where the market, the school and the pharmacy are reached on foot. The housing stock fits the bill, from the S+1 in a SNIT block in Mourouj 2 to the villa in Mourouj 6.

This page gathers everything for sale in El Mourouj, apartments and houses together, as posted by private sellers, agencies and developers; the price is discussed with the advertiser. To compare with Rades, Ezzahra, Megrine or Ben Arous town, all the property for sale in Ben Arous governorate gives the overall picture.

Apartment or house: the question that only arises here

Elsewhere in Greater Tunis, the budget settles the question quickly. In El Mourouj, for the same envelope, the choice is real: a new S+3 (three bedrooms plus a living room) in a residence in Mourouj 5 or 6, or a 1980s estate house in Mourouj 1 or 2, in need of a refresh but with a garage, a terrace and often an upper floor to let. The house brings the land, no service charges and a top-up rent that helps with repayments; it also brings works, the terrace waterproofing first, and sometimes a planning file to regularise. The new apartment offers a clean title, an easier loan and a quicker resale, against service charges and party walls.

To decide, the two specialised pages detail the prices seen per cite: the apartments for sale in El Mourouj for the price per m² in residences, the houses for sale in El Mourouj for villas and estate houses.

The SNIT and SPROLS blocks, the cheapest way in

Several cites, Mourouj 2 first among them, were partly built by the SNIT and the SPROLS, the public housing bodies: three or four storey blocks delivered in the 1980s and 1990s to wage earners who paid for them on credit. These apartments are now coming back onto the market, sold by the first occupants or their heirs, and they are the cheapest way into ownership in El Mourouj: an S+2 of 70 to 85 m² here often costs less than a new S+1 in Mourouj 6. The query "منازل للبيع في المروج 1", houses for sale in El Mourouj 1, and its English version house for sale Mourouj 1, in fact often target these homes, the word "house" covering, in everyday Arabic, anything one lives in.

Before signing in a SNIT block, ask for a recent certificate of ownership and the release of the mortgage that secured the original loan; check that enclosed balconies and extensions have been declared, and that the building has a residents' body, even an informal one, that looks after the water tank and the stairwell.

Financing and choosing your moment

A purchase in El Mourouj is almost always financed with a loan, and the bank requires a titled property and a deposit. The support schemes for wage earners buying a first home cap the price of the property: that cap matches precisely the older stock of Mourouj 1 and 2 and some developer schemes, rarely the villas of Mourouj 6. Take the time to have your borrowing capacity validated before the viewings; El Mourouj sellers are used to waiting for the bank's approval, but not to discovering it at the time of the preliminary agreement.

Timing matters. Listings come out in spring and at the start of the school year, emigrants buy in summer, and a property that has found no taker before autumn negotiates better. Selling is slow here, several months for a house, a little less for an apartment in a residence, which leaves room for a patient buyer.

The file to gather before the preliminary sale agreement

Whatever the property, three documents to obtain before any agreement: the land title or certificate of ownership in the seller's name, the original building permit with its amendments, and the latest receipts for the tax on built property. Add the status of the STEG and SONEDE bills (electricity and water), and above all the tenancy situation: in El Mourouj, many houses have a let upper floor and many older apartments a sitting tenant, who will not leave overnight. The preliminary sale agreement, with a deposit, must state the deadline for obtaining the loan and the date the premises will be vacated.

If you are still undecided on the cite, renting for a year first is not absurd: the property to rent in El Mourouj page lets you test the neighbourhood before committing twenty years of repayments to it.