With the launch of the national dialogue discussion sessions with wide attendance and diversity in the levels of the national spectrum from various political, professional, trade union, and academic fields under the slogan (Common Spaces), hopes are increasing that this dialogue will result in strong, implementable outcomes and solutions to the challenges facing the Egyptian society in the three dialogue axes, and achieve a positive impact in supporting and building the Egyptian state in the coming period.

The truth is that Egypt has witnessed many societal dialogues before, but this is the first time that the dialogue has been professionally prepared, taking nearly a year, and resulted in a clear agenda and work methodology represented in the formation of the Board of Trustees of the National Dialogue, the issuance of the regulation governing the work of this council, the issuance of the National Dialogue's Code of Conduct and Ethics, and the procedures and information of sub-committees and tasks of the rapporteurs and assistant rapporteurs.

There is no doubt that the three axes of the dialogue (social, economic, and political) are important, but the economic axis remains the most urgent, especially in light of the global crises that have had strong implications on people's daily lives.

This axis covers eight main files including inflation and high prices, private investment, priority of public investments, the state's general budget and financial reform, tourism, industry, and agriculture. The discussions of the axis will contribute to unifying the investment vision for the map of the Egyptian economy. There are many sub-issues included in these files which some have addressed in the preparation for the dialogue files, but there is an aspect that affects the interests of citizens, especially the middle class, which was the focus of interest during the first discussion sessions that included a warning about the danger of the sharp decline in the role of this class, which is considered the balance in society.

Although there are many living challenges facing this class, the housing challenge is among the most important challenges due to its high cost, which requires that it receives the attention it deserves on the agenda of this dialogue. This leads us to the importance of addressing the crisis of the Egyptian real estate sector and the strange conditions and violations that are happening in it, which negatively affect some real estate companies that have shown negative practices towards consumers that disturb many of them, who got involved in buying housing units from these companies and paid large amounts to discover later the weakness of the executive position of their projects and some of them stopped, which made these supposed owners suffer in dealing with some real estate companies due to their failure to fulfill their obligations.

The problems facing the buyers of housing units from the middle class are an essential part of the priority issues on the agenda of the economic axis, given that the real estate sector represents more than 20% of Egypt's total GDP, that is, about 1.6 trillion Egyptian pounds. The sales of the top 20 real estate companies reached 317 billion Egyptian pounds in 2022.

This vital sector is linked to about 100 other industries, making it essential to the Egyptian economy. There is no doubt that there are major challenges facing the real estate sector, including rising interest rates, decreased purchasing power, and increasing construction material prices. Instead of confronting these challenges head-on, we have seen some Egyptian companies resort to individual solutions that have sparked widespread controversy and had a negative impact. For example, some companies have linked the sale of real estate units to the US dollar exchange rate, while the real economic solution lies in linking it to construction material prices.

Furthermore, some companies have violated the provisions of the contracts they have entered into with buyers by repricing the units at multiples of the price the buyer originally contracted for in case of payment delays. These companies have also failed to adhere to the delivery deadlines, with some delays exceeding three years. In addition, there is a chaotic formulation of unit sales contracts that turn into contracts of surrender for the buyers. This necessitates oversight by state authorities over these deceptive contracts that have trapped many buyers in unresolved crises, leaving them with no option but to spend years waiting for their "dream home" while already having paid installments for their "nightmare home."