Armenia's Housing Crisis: Foreigners Can Buy Apartments Easier Than Armenians
The Pashinyan regime passed a regulation that will allow foreign citizens, anyone in the world, to electronically purchase apartments in Armenia without even visiting the country.
In July 2026, the Pashinyan regime passed a regulation through the Cadastre Committee that fundamentally reshapes foreign property access in Armenia. Hovik explains the mechanism: through three-way contracts involving a bank, foreign purchaser, and property developer, foreign citizens can now electronically purchase apartments without visiting Armenia or obtaining a power of attorney. Armenians, by contrast, must navigate notarization, bank paperwork, and direct engagement with the bureaucratic system.
The policy is especially striking given Armenia’s broader economic context. Hovik notes that approximately 50,000 housing units are currently under construction-units that assume a potential market of 200,000 people if averaged at four persons per family. Yet property prices in Armenia now exceed those in some European countries. Most Armenians live in Soviet-era apartments inherited by their parents and grandparents, with multi-generational families crowding into single units because they cannot afford new housing. Meanwhile, the poverty rate remains staggeringly high despite Pashinyan’s eight years in power.
Asbed points to the beneficiaries: Most major property developers are Civil Contract cronies and government-connected figures. The regulation effectively opens a speculative vehicle for foreign investors to flip Armenian real estate while ordinary Armenians are locked out. Hovik raises the geopolitical implication: given that Turkey has restricted property sales to citizens of Syria, Cuba, North Korea, and Armenia-only four countries banned from Turkish property ownership-why is the Armenian regime suddenly liberalizing access for foreigners? The effect is to make Armenia’s housing and land increasingly accessible to foreign capital while Armenians struggle with extreme poverty and overcrowding.
Transcript
Hovik Manucharyan: So one topic that I want to cover is that the Pashinyan regime passed a regulation last week through the Cadastre committee, essentially. That will allow foreign citizens, anyone in the world, to electronically purchase apartments in Armenia without visiting the country even or having the power of attorney. If you're in Armenia and if you want to purchase property, you have to go through this very dedicated dance, going to the notary public, having all the paperwork from the banks and everything. But Apparently now you can just simply, if you're a foreign citizen, you don't even have to visit Armenia and you don't even have to get a power of attorney. Is this a bill or is it a law? It's a regulation from the Cadastre Committee that essentially allows three-way contracts between the bank, the purchaser, and the property developer specifically. So if you're developing brand new properties, all these brand new buildings, Then all you need to do is have a three-way contract that is electronically signed and Armenia will honor it. If these restrictions were uniformly reduced or streamlined, I would say one thing, but the restrictions are not being streamlined for Armenian citizens,