Insights
Analysis and definitions for the Saudi real estate market, built only from primary public sources (government indices, listed-REIT disclosures and developer filings), with a source and a date on every figure.
Residential market
Prices, mortgages and supply for Saudi housing, read from the primary record: GASTAT indices, SAMA lending tables, registered transaction volumes and the developers' own filings.
- Jeddah sells more apartments than Riyadh, at a lower price Jeddah sold more apartments than Riyadh in Q1 2026, at 33.9% less per square metre.
- Riyadh apartment rents average SAR 2,584 a month The average rent in Riyadh was SAR 2,584 a month for an apartment at the end of 2025. Here is how it varies by district, and what the rent freeze changed.
- Riyadh land prices by district, and which ones you can trust Riyadh residential land prices per square metre for nineteen districts in Q2 2026, with the number of deals behind each price so you can tell which ones hold up.
- Riyadh prices rise 4.2% while rents stay frozen Riyadh property prices rose 4.2% in the year to Q2 2026, even as a five-year rent freeze holds leases flat.
- Riyadh rental yields: the cheapest districts pay the most We ranked gross apartment yields in 65 Riyadh districts for 2025. The cheapest districts pay the most, and Al Olaya pays the least.
- Saudi mortgage lending falls 12% despite rate cuts Saudi banks wrote SAR 80.4 billion of new home loans in 2025, 12% less than in 2024. Villas still take most of the money, and lower rates have not brought buyers back.
- Saudi rental yields average about 4.5% across 12 cities No Saudi authority publishes a rental yield. We built one from REGA's rent and sale files: a median gross yield of about 4.5% across 12 cities.
- Why the official index can't tell you which Saudi region is most expensive Each regional price index from the General Authority for Statistics starts at 100 in 2023, so it tracks how fast prices move in a region. Riyadh rose 11.7% from 2023 to 2025.
Policy and regulation
What each new Saudi real-estate rule actually says, from the official text: who it covers, the dates that matter and the numbers it moves.
- Foreigners can now buy Saudi property, but not yet everywhere Can foreigners buy property in Saudi Arabia? Yes, since 22 January 2026, inside designated zones and with 10% in fees. The zones themselves are still not published.
- How Saudi Arabia's Wafi licence protects off-plan buyers Off-plan sales in Saudi Arabia need a Wafi licence. Wafi licensed 101,942 units in 2023. Here is how the rules, escrow and 5% deposit cap work.
- How Saudi off-plan buyers' money is held in escrow Saudi off-plan developers must run buyer and lender money through one escrow account. Land, debt and marketing all have to fit inside 20% of units sold.
- How the FAL brokerage licence works in Saudi Arabia How the FAL brokerage licence works in Saudi Arabia, from commission and renewal to fines, read straight from REGA's own texts.
- Saudi Arabia raises the cost of holding idle land Saudi Arabia's white land tax now reaches 10% of land value a year in parts of Riyadh. Here is who pays, how much, and how the market has reacted.
- Saudi Arabia's 5% property sales tax falls on the seller How Saudi Arabia's 5% real estate transaction tax works: who pays it, the 21 exemptions, the first-home relief and the 2% non-Saudi fee set on 3 July 2026.
- Saudi expropriation law now pays market value plus 20% Since 17 January 2026, Saudi Arabia pays owners market value plus 20% when it takes land. Older files still run under the 2003 law, with no uplift.
- Saudi property sales are VAT-free, but commercial rents are not Property sales in Saudi Arabia have been exempt from VAT since 4 October 2020 and pay 5% RETT instead. Home leases are exempt. Commercial leases under 50 years pay 15%.
- What Riyadh's five-year rent freeze means for landlords Riyadh rents are frozen for five years from 25 Sep 2025, for homes and shops alike. How the rules work, what a breach costs, and how fast rents had been rising.
- Which Saudi property deals are exempt from transaction tax Saudi law exempts 21 kinds of property transfer from the 5% transaction tax. Most come with conditions, and a broken one can revive the bill years later.
Office market
Office demand, supply and pricing, assembled only from primary public sources (government indices, listed-REIT disclosures and developer filings).
- Saudi office rents: the official figures end in 2024 REGA tracked Saudi office rents city by city until the end of 2024. What those figures show, and what the 2025 files leave out.
- Dubai's best offices are close to full, landlord filings show Dubai's listed office landlords report occupancy of 95% to 98%, and DIFC's newest tower was almost fully let on handover. What the filings show and what they leave out.
- Riyadh offices are close to full, and rents are frozen Regional headquarters keep arriving in Riyadh, prime office space is close to full and rents are frozen for five years. What the public data shows.
- Saudi Arabia's regional headquarters scheme ties its tax break to an office More than 700 companies had a Saudi regional headquarters licence by end 2025. The 30-year 0% tax rate only holds if each one keeps a real office in the Kingdom.
Retail market
Retail demand and supply read from the public record: weekly card spending by activity and city, and the mall areas and occupancy that listed landlords disclose themselves.
- How big is the Saudi retail market? What the data shows Saudi shoppers spent SAR 707.15bn through card terminals in 2025. No authority publishes mall space, occupancy or rent, so listed landlords fill the gap.
- Saudi mall occupancy: the biggest owner's 91.2% leaves out its weakest malls There is no official Saudi mall occupancy rate. The largest listed owner reported 91.2% at 30 June 2026, and 89.5% across every mall it runs.
Hospitality
Hotel demand and supply in the Kingdom, from pilgrim counts to the room inventories that listed operators disclose.
- Makkah hotel rooms pass 300,000 as Umrah sets the pace Makkah now has more than 300,000 licensed hotel rooms. Hajj is capped by quota, so Umrah drives demand. What the official data shows, and what it leaves out.
- Saudi Arabia has 506,005 hotel rooms, most of them in Makkah Saudi Arabia counted 506,005 licensed hotel rooms at Q1 2026. Most sit in Makkah and Madinah, and much of the recent growth probably came from existing buildings getting a licence.
- Saudi hotel occupancy slips to 60.8% as most regions improve Saudi hotels were 60.8% full in Q1 2026, down 2.1 points on a year earlier, even though seven of thirteen regions improved. City-by-city figures from GASTAT.
- Saudi hotel room rates have fallen nine quarters running The average Saudi hotel room went for SAR 423 a night in Q1 2026, 11.4% less than a year earlier. Part of the fall is price, part is a much larger pool of licensed hotels.
Real estate finance
How Saudi property is financed and priced: the licensed fund universe, the credit series that decide what a deal costs, and the benchmark rate under every floating loan.
- Saudi home loans fall even as borrowing costs ease 3-month SAIBOR averaged 4.74% in June 2026, well off its 2023 peak. New bank mortgages still fell 31% in the first half. What the rate is and what it means for borrowers.
- Saudi mortgage lending falls while the loan book keeps growing Saudi banks held SAR 967.9bn of real estate loans at Q1 2026, yet new mortgages fell 31% in the first half. What SAMA data shows, and how to read it.
- Saudi private property funds are now 12.3 times bigger than every listed REIT combined Private real estate funds in Saudi Arabia held SAR 380.67bn at Q1 2026, more than any other private fund class, yet the regulator publishes only three numbers about them each quarter.
Developers
Who is actually building in the Kingdom, profiled from audited statements, prospectuses and the off-plan licence register, with the state-owned developers that publish nothing comparable kept visibly apart.
- Private developers build most of NHC's new homes We added up NHC's project register: 126 launched projects with 133,079 units in 12 cities. Private developers build most of them, and delivery lags far behind launches.
- Who are the biggest real estate developers in Saudi Arabia? National Housing Company is the largest real estate developer in Saudi Arabia by its own figures. Dar Al Arkan is the largest among developers with audited accounts.
Vision 2030 and giga-projects
The announced scope of Saudi Arabia's giga-projects against what has actually been delivered, kept to official figures and dated filings.
Data sources and methods
Where Saudi real-estate data actually lives, what each public source publishes and how often, and how to read the filings most people skip.
- Saudi Arabia's free property data site: what it shows and where its numbers clash REGA's indicators platform is free to read and covers sales, rents, credit and prices. A guide to what it shows for Q2 2026, and where its own figures disagree.
- Saudi Arabia's new property register: which areas it covers so far Saudi Arabia's real estate registry now covers 1,257 areas in 10 of 13 regions. 4.9m properties have been announced and 1.8m deeds issued.
- Saudi build costs rise 2.26% in a year, led by equipment hire GASTAT's construction cost index read 103.99 in July 2026, only 3.99% above its 2023 base. Equipment hire did more of the moving than labour.
- Saudi property index up 1.3% as land prices offset falling villa values The Saudi real estate price index rose 1.3% in Q2 2026. Land makes up most of the basket, so plot prices rose while villa prices fell 9.7%.
- What Saudi Arabia's official property sales file leaves out The Ministry of Justice publishes every registered property deed in Saudi Arabia. Only 9.6% of rows say what was sold, and one quarter is a duplicate.
- What Saudi Arabia's official rent index shows, and what it leaves out Saudi rents dipped slightly in Q2 2026 on the official index but are up about a fifth since 2022. How the index works, why it has no city detail and why GASTAT can disagree.
- What Saudi REIT filings reveal about the property market Every Tadawul REIT must publish the occupancy of each building it owns, twice a year. Average occupancy slipped to 91.2% in Q1 2026.
- Where to find Saudi real estate data, and what is missing A guide to the free public sources of Saudi real estate data, from the GASTAT price index to Ejar leases and REIT filings, and the figures none of them publish.
Data fundamentals
The working vocabulary of a Saudi real-estate data brief: each term defined with a worked regional example, not a textbook line.
- Gross vs net rental yield: what Saudi landlords actually keep How gross rental yield turns into net yield in Saudi Arabia, worked on a Riyadh district and two listed funds, with the costs no authority publishes.
- How to work out residual land value in Saudi Arabia A residual land value calculation needs five inputs, and Saudi Arabia publishes only one as a price. We work it through on an Al Malqa plot in Riyadh.
- What Grade A office means in the Gulf Grade A, Grade B and prime are different tiers, and each research house draws the lines its own way. How to tell them apart in Riyadh, and what the public record shows.
- What a hotel key is, and why it is not a room A hotel key is one unit a hotel can sell for a night, whether a room, a suite or a villa. Developers count keys, but the Saudi regulator counts rooms.
- What absorption rate measures, and why Riyadh does not publish one Absorption rate tells you how fast empty space is let or sold. How to calculate it, how net absorption differs, and why no public Riyadh figure exists.
- What gross leasable area means, and how it differs from GFA Gross leasable area is the space a landlord can rent out. Here is how it differs from GFA, NLA and BUA, using KAFD in Riyadh as the example.
- Why a supply pipeline overstates what will be built A development pipeline counts what has been announced. Net supply is what is left after delays, cancellations and demolitions. Here is how Riyadh's office figures compare.