Saudi housing market presents immense opportunities
With the Saudi real estate market expected to grow at a robust rate of between 2.8 percent to 4 percent in 2022, there is also a lot of money to be made in real estate development and investment.
The real estate sector is witnessing a boom since the announcement of Vision 2030 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
One of the targets of the development strategy is to increase citizens’ homeownership from 60 percent to 70 percent by 2030.
In order to realize this objective, 145,000 housing units need to be added to the Saudi market per year.
I believe it presents a huge opportunity to foreign housing developers to enter it.
The Saudi authorities have also announced several incentives for foreign investors and the Housing Ministry is keen on developing the sector to meet the growing demand.
The Kingdom’s housing development market will continue to remain promising for the next two decades.
We can figure that out by looking at the numbers. Between 2016 and 2019, 270,000 home loans were granted to citizens — a number that is expected to increase over time.
It would be pertinent to mention that Saudi Arabia’s Sakani housing program beneficiaries received SR734 million ($195.7 million) from the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing and the Real Estate
Development Fund in July, up from SR587 million a year earlier.
In another step toward developing the housing sector, the Developers Services Center recently approved nine housing schemes during the first half of this year, with a total area of more than 16.1 million square meters.
The approved plans included Riyadh, Makkah, Al-Qassim, the Eastern Province, Asir, Tabuk, and the northern border, Al-Eqtisadiah reported.
The Developers Services Center completed during the first half of this year building permit applications for 8,131 housing units, and the issuance of 119 real estate developer qualification certificates for sales projects.
The center also contributed to the issuance of 45 sales licenses for off-plan sales projects, and 2,171 real estate developers were qualified in cooperation with the competent authorities to provide real estate development services.
In order to meet the growing demand, the market needs more players with the necessary skills to deliver quality services and products. The Saudi market is open to all investors and companies who possess the latest technology and skills to reduce cost and time without compromising on quality.
I advise international housing developers to take advantage of this opportunity and benefit from the huge government support at this early stage.