12% rise in number of real estate deals in February

Times News Service

MUSCAT: Oman has seen a 12 per cent rise in the number of properties sold in February as compared to the same period last year.

This information was disclosed by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) on its official Twitter handle.

“12% is the increase in the number of #properties issued at the end of #February 2018 compared to the same period in 2017,” the NCSI handle tweeted.

“OMR184 million was the total value of #property traded in the #Sultanate by #February 2018,” the NCSI said in another tweet.

Managing director of Sharqiyah Real Estate Yasser Al Alawi said that people were buying more land because land prices had stabilised.

“Well, the first point to be made here is that land prices have finally stabilised. So, people with liquidity can invest, and buying land is an attractive option.

“This has resulted in people buying more land and the same is reflected in the statistics,” Alawi said. He added that another reason why people were buying land was because prices were at an all-time low.

“Land is being offered at the lowest price since the past five or six years. So, more people feel like it is the right time to invest in land and hope that land prices will appreciate in the coming years,” he said. Alawi said that the oil price crash of 2014 had been one of the major factors that led to the fall in land prices, adding that the prices of flats had also been hit.

“The drop in oil price is, of course, one of the factors. It affected the prices of built-up properties as well. Real estate developers responded by offering flats at very low prices. Properties in good areas were affected a little bit, but places that were far away from populated areas saw a significant decline in prices since selling had become even more difficult,” he added.

‘Bright future’

Moreover, the managing director affirmed that there was hope that the real estate business would become increasingly more profitable in the days to come.

“The future is definitely bright. How long it will take for things to really pick up is hard to tell. Certain policies of the government have helped the cause. God willing, things will improve further in the near future,” Alawi remarked.