Land and farms for sale in El Ouardia

Let us be honest from the start: El Ouardia has no farms, and almost no bare land. The delegation is fully built up, from the top of Bellevue down to El Ouardia 5 and Cite Mohamed Ali, squeezed between Jebel Jelloud, Montfleury and the Ben Arous road. The last free plots were built on long ago. What you find under the heading land for sale in El Ouardia, when you find it, is an old low house sold for the value of its ground, a corner plot with an unfinished building, or a parcel resulting from a division between heirs.

On Houni, the supply in this category for the delegation is limited and changes from one week to the next. The rare properties of this kind are posted by private sellers, sometimes filed as a house rather than as land. For genuine building land or a farm plot, the page of land and farms for sale across the Tunis governorate points to the delegations that still have some, Sidi Hassine and El Hrairia on the west side in particular, and the neighbouring governorates of Ben Arous and Manouba have far more.

Buying ground in El Ouardia: what for

Anyone looking for land here almost always has the same project: building a small block of three or four levels, one flat per floor, a shop unit on the ground floor if the street suits it, and letting or selling the units. Rental demand is constant in El Ouardia, rents modest but reliable, and the proximity of the light rail and the city centre does the rest. It is the same reasoning that pushes buyers towards the delegation's multi-storey houses, and many end up buying an old house to demolish it, simply because there is nothing else; the page of houses for sale in El Ouardia is then the right place to start.

The areas involved are small. A plot in El Ouardia is rarely more than 150 m², often less in Bellevue and El Ouardia 1, where the plot pattern is oldest. Price is therefore reckoned per square metre of ground and by the number of levels that can be built, not by garden area. Compared with a plot on a new estate in the southern suburbs, the square metre is dear for what it is, but it is inside the municipality of Tunis and on the light rail.

What to check before signing

The first document is the land title. Many old houses in the neighbourhood are jointly owned by heirs, and a parcel resulting from a division must be covered by a registered deed of division; otherwise you are buying a share, and you will build nothing on it without everyone's agreement. Ask too for a recent certificate of ownership and check that no mortgage encumbers the property.

The second is the urban development plan of the municipality of Tunis. It sets the land use, the permitted height, the setback from the street and the plot ratio. A 120 m² plot on which only two levels can be built is not worth the same as one where four are allowed. Make enquiries at the municipal district office before putting forward a figure, and if there is a building, ask for its permit: demolishing it is simple, regularising what was built without authorisation much less so.

The third is the plot itself. Some low-lying streets in the delegation hold water in heavy rain; go there on a stormy day. Look at the party walls, the load-bearing walls shared with the neighbours, and the cables and pipes crossing the plot. And check the connections: water, electricity and sewerage are present throughout the delegation, but a plot resulting from a division may have only one connection for two parcels.

Reading listings and talking to sellers

A land listing in El Ouardia rarely says "land". It says "house to demolish", "ground floor to renovate or rebuild", "plot with slab", sometimes "land with building". Read house listings with that in mind, and on the phone, ask the questions that matter straight away: who owns it, is the title individual, is the house occupied. An heir selling an empty family house with a clean title is the ideal seller; he is also the rarest.

To compare with what a finished property brings in, the properties for sale in El Ouardia give an idea of the resale prices of flats and floors, and the page of homes to rent in El Ouardia of the rents your future building could aim for.