Saudi residential real estate to attract $1.22 billion this year, consultancy says

DUBAI: Private buyers in Saudi Arabia are expected to spend $1.22 billion in the country’s residential market this year, property consultant Knight Frank said in a report on Tuesday, with NEOM being the most sought after for a home purchase.

Saudi Arabia has poured hundreds of billions of dollars through the Public Investment Fund (PIF) into “giga-projects” such as NEOM, a massive urban and industrial development project nearly the size of Belgium to be built along the Red Sea coast.

NEOM is set to house roughly nine million people and is central to the kingdom’s economic diversification plan called Vision 2030 to create new sources of growth beyond oil.

Saudi nationals and Saudi-based expats plan to spend $489 million on residential real estate in the country, according to a survey of 1,037 households, including 100 Saudi-based expats.

They also plan to set aside $733 million for giga-projects, according to the report. While NEOM remains the top choice for them, greater choice in the market and fewer move-in-ready homes for sale have eroded its dominant position, the report said. NEOM’s popularity has decreased from 84% in 2023 to 17% this year, Faisal Durrani, Knight Frank’s head of research for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was quoted as saying in the report.

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“There are likely to be a range of reasons for this, including the emergence of other giga-projects over the last two years, perceptions around households’ ability to afford to own a home in any of NEOM’s subprojects, a lack of ready-to-move-into homes, a lack of homes actually on the market to purchase, or a combination of the above,” Durrani added.

There is 2.75 billion riyals ($733.08 million) of potential private capital among Saudi nationals and Saudi-based expats ready to be spent on residential real estate within the giga-projects, according to research from the property consultant.