Saudi announces availability of 3,600 new homes

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Housing has announced the availability of 3,636 new housing units for citizens through partnerships with the private sector.

The homes in Dammam, Al Ahsa and Jizan will be allocated to citizens on the kingdom’s housing waiting lists, who can visit exhibitions to complete their final reservations.

They include 2,667 townhouses in Dammam, 777 apartments in Dammam and 192 villas in Al-Asha governorate located in development areas.

“There will be complete infrastructure of road networks, lighting, electricity, water, telecommunications, sanitation, health and education services, green spaces and gardens, mosques, schools, playgrounds, family entertainment platforms and all modern services,” the ministry said.

Prices range from SAR250,000 ($66,653) to SAR700,000 ($186,627).

The ministry intends to provide 300,000 housing and financing products to Saudis in total this year, including 125,000 units in partnership with the private sector, 75,000 residential land plots and 100,000 instances of financial support through a partnership between the real estate development fund and banks.

In May, the kingdom announced plans to deliver one million housing units over the next five years to meet a waiting list of 1.5 million citizens.

To do so the government is partnering with private sector developers, having previously undertaken home construction on its own.

Read: Saudi plans to deliver one million housing units over next five years

Sovereign fund the Public Investment Fund established a national mortgage refinancing company in October in an attempt to boost the kingdom’s real estate sector.

The Saudi Mortgage Refinancing Company will seek to inject liquidity in the mortgage market and provide about SAR75bn ($19.9bn) of refinancing initially. This will increase to SAR170bn ($45.3bn) by 2026.

Read: Saudi’s PIF establishes $20bn mortgage company