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Real Estate Market Creates Positive Momentum in Saudi Market

Real estate in Makkah, western Saudi Arabia (SPA)
Real estate in Makkah, western Saudi Arabia (SPA)
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Real Estate Market Creates Positive Momentum in Saudi Market

Real estate in Makkah, western Saudi Arabia (SPA)
Real estate in Makkah, western Saudi Arabia (SPA)

In its first year, the Saudi real estate exchange recorded approximately 619,000 real estate transactions valued at over $273 billion (SAR 1.025 trillion), covering a total area of more than 5.4 billion square meters. Around 2.1 million beneficiaries have taken advantage of these transactions, according to the Saudi Ministry of Justice.

Real estate experts told Asharq Al-Awsat that the real estate exchange has had a positive impact on the behavior of all market participants.

The market has allowed buyers and investors to make purchase decisions with greater confidence, security, and speed. The exchange has also played a key role in simplifying and streamlining real estate procedures and enhancing transparency, which constituted major challenges in the past.

The experts recommended further steps to boost its effectiveness, including providing detailed and specialized real estate indicators, offering accurate analytical reports on market trends throughout the year, expanding property evaluations to cover all regions of the Kingdom, and leveraging artificial intelligence technologies to analyze real estate data.

Real Estate Expert Eng. Ahmed Al-Faqih told Asharq Al-Awsat that the real estate exchange has created a positive shift and significant impact on the behavior of all market participants, including sellers, buyers, investors, regulators, and market observers. He noted that the platform is characterized by transparency and governance, and its launch coincided with the digital transformation taking place in Saudi Arabia.

Regarding the additional services proposed for the market, Al-Faqih said he believes it lacks detailed and specialized real estate indicators. He also noted that the platform still needs property classifications for certain types of real estate and improvements in search filters to provide more precise results.

For his part, Real estate expert Saqr Al-Zahrani told Asharq Al-Awsat that the real estate exchange has brought a significant transformation in the management of real estate during its first year of operation.

It has had a clear positive impact on the market by streamlining procedures and enhancing transparency, he underlined, noting that the exchange has allowed both buyers and investors to make decisions with greater confidence.

Al-Zahrani suggested enhancing the exchange by adding more services, including providing detailed analytical reports on market trends throughout the year. He also recommended expanding property evaluations to cover all regions of the Kingdom more comprehensively and accurately.

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ECB's Lagarde Renews Integration Call as Trade War Looms

FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
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ECB's Lagarde Renews Integration Call as Trade War Looms

FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde renewed her call for economic integration across Europe on Friday, arguing that intensifying global trade tensions and a growing technology gap with the United States create fresh urgency for action.
US President-elect Donald Trump has promised to impose tariffs on most if not all imports and said Europe would pay a heavy price for having run a large trade surplus with the US for decades.
"The geopolitical environment has also become less favorable, with growing threats to free trade from all corners of the world," Lagarde said in a speech, without directly referring to Trump.
"The urgency to integrate our capital markets has risen."
While Europe has made some progress, EU members tend to water down most proposals to protect vested national interests to the detriment of the bloc as a whole, Reuters quoted Lagarde as saying.
But this is taking hundreds of billions if not trillions of euros out of the economy as households are holding 11.5 trillion euros in cash and deposits, and much of this is not making its way to the firms that need the funding.
"If EU households were to align their deposit-to-financial assets ratio with that of US households, a stock of up to 8 trillion euros could be redirected into long-term, market-based investments – or a flow of around 350 billion euros annually," Lagarde said.
When the cash actually enters the capital market, it often stays within national borders or leaves for the US in hope of better returns, Lagarde added.
Europe therefore needs to reduce the cost of investing in capital markets and must make the regulatory regime easier for cash to flow to places where it is needed the most.
A solution might be to create an EU-wide regulatory regime on top of the 27 national rules and certain issuers could then opt into this framework.
"To bypass the cumbersome process of regulatory harmonization, we could envisage a 28th regime for issuers of securities," Lagarde said. "They would benefit from a unified corporate and securities law, facilitating cross-border placement, holding and settlement."
Still, that would not solve the problem that few innovative companies set up shop in Europe, partly due to the lack of funding. So Europe must make it easier for investment to flow into venture capital and for banks to fund startups, she said.