A state-run news publication recently reported that almost a third of people in Iran are renting their property. It said that many people live in “squalid” houses and apartments despite there are approximately 2.5 million properties that are currently lying empty.

The publication explained that many owners of properties that are lying empty refuse to rent them out, and many that do rent them out do so at extortionate rates that are unaffordable to most.

Rental prices are getting higher and higher, especially in the bigger towns and cities and more and more people are falling into the absolute poverty category.

Instead of addressing the many problems that the people are facing, the Iranian regime has done nothing but pass the blame elsewhere – mostly saying that the United States is behind all the country’s troubles.

Regime officials have said outright that sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States are the reason for all of the country’s economic issues.

However, the reality could not be further from the truth. The regime’s corruption that is present at all levels of the leadership and is so engrained that the economy has continually got worse over the course of the last few decades.

The country’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development has indicated that there has been an average increase of 90 per cent with regards to the price of accommodation during the past year alone.

And contrary to what many regime officials are claiming, economic experts are saying that the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration have not had any impact on the country’s housing market. Supporting this argument is the fact that the price hike only started towards the second half of the year before the comprehensive sanctions took effect.

As with many other parts of the economy, the housing market is controlled by regime officials and their corrupt businesses that have so much economic power. Members of the regime are able to fill their own pockets at the expense of the people.

The people, however, are fed up with the situation and they are calling for regime change. They know that the only hope of having a bright future is with the collapse of the clerical regime.

The clerical regime is getting weaker and weaker as time goes on and it is running out of options. It cannot continue in the same way because the international and domestic pressure is too much for it to deal with.

In order to try and regain some of its control that it is losing, the regime has been increasing its belligerent activities across the region. Tensions rose last month between the United States and Iran and there were serious concerns that a war would ensue. Things calmed down for a few weeks but they are heating up again.

Whether there will be military conflict remains to be seen, but it is certain that this would hasten the regime’s collapse.