Jeddah sells more apartments than Riyadh, at a lower price

Jeddah sold more apartments than Riyadh in Q1 2026, 4,307 against 3,133, and it sold them cheaper. A Jeddah apartment went for SAR 3,876.00 per square metre, against SAR 5,861.71 in the capital (REGA). In all, the city registered 7,685 residential deeds worth SAR 8.53 billion.

The market has no price index of its own, no published yield and no district table after Q3 2025. Since 3 July 2026, Jeddah governorate is one of four places where a non-Saudi pays 2% of value to dispose of a property right (Umm Al-Qura).

Key figures at a glance

Jeddah is the Kingdom's second market

Jeddah took 20.6% of the value of the Kingdom's residential deeds in Q1 2026, against 35.9% for Riyadh (REGA).

Volume fell 26.3% from Q4 2025. Most of that is the calendar: Ramadan 1447 fell inside the quarter, and Q1 has been the quiet quarter every year in this series.

Apartments made up 56.0% of deeds and land 40.8%. The whole city recorded 142 villa deeds. The 2022 census explains it: 72.5% of Jeddah's 1,081,908 occupied homes are apartments, against 46.7% in Riyadh (GASTAT Census 2022, Census-2022-Housing-Type.csv; the census portal serves no link).

So when the national villa index falls 9.7% year on year to 94.89 in Q2 2026 (GASTAT), Jeddah barely feels it, while Riyadh does (Riyadh residential).

Prices per square metre, and how they get misread

In Q1 2026 REGA prints SAR 3,876.00/sqm for apartments on 4,307 deeds. Residential land comes in at SAR 2,383.22 on 3,134 deeds, villas at SAR 3,481.25 on 142 (REGA).

REGA does not divide total value by total area. Do that sum on the Q1 2026 land row and you get SAR 931.18/sqm, a 156% gap with the published SAR 2,383.22. On the Q4 2025 apartment row the two methods agree to within 1.1%.

The published figure works like an average of per-deed prices. The smallest plot counts as much as the largest, and land is where plot sizes vary most. Two analysts using the same file can quote Jeddah land 2.5x apart, and both will say they are quoting REGA (the indicators platform, Riyadh land by district).

In Q2 2025, a single row of 19 Al Fayha villa deeds works out at SAR 842 million per villa. Removing it cuts Jeddah's residential value for the quarter from SAR 26.82 billion to SAR 10.82 billion, and Q3 2025 has a similar row. Add up the file without screening and the market looks twice its real size.

There is no Jeddah growth rate. GASTAT's index stops at the region. Its Makkah reading was 102.43 in Q2 2026, up 0.4% year on year against 1.3% nationally, but it blends Jeddah with the sixteen other cities in REGA's Makkah file. "Jeddah prices rose 0.4%" is the wrong scope (GASTAT, prices by region).

District prices stop at Q3 2025

REGA dropped the district column after Q3 2025. What remains is 3,647 rows by district, type and quarter, covering 78,120 deeds from Q1 2024 to Q3 2025 (REGA). Of 120 land rows for Q3 2025, 62 carry a price. Below are some from the top and bottom of the list.

Ash Sharai is the cheapest district with a hundred deeds behind it. Al Masarrah is cheaper, at SAR 358, but on 7 deeds. REGA hides any price below six deeds. Its biggest Jeddah land label that quarter is أخرى, "other", on 169 deeds, and it names no district.

Apartment rents have barely moved

REGA recorded 120,352 apartment leases in Jeddah in Q4 2025. The average rent was SAR 24,589 a year, or SAR 211.6 per sqm, which is 20.7% below Riyadh's SAR 31,014 (REGA). This is the newest rental file available.

Rent per metre rose every quarter of 2025: SAR 205.2, 207.2, 210.7, 211.6. Rent per contract did not. It went SAR 23,840, 24,765, 25,036, then back to 24,589, below Q2 and Q3.

Registrations rose from 17,180 in Q1 2019 to 111,106 in Q4 2024, while average rent moved 13.7%. Most of that 6.5x rise is compliance: from 15 January 2024, REGA required rent on new residential leases to be paid through Ejar's digital channels (REGA).

Over those six years, Jeddah apartment rents rose 13.7% and villa rents 3.7%. In Riyadh they rose 44.2% and 49.7%. Riyadh is also where rents are frozen for five years from 25 September 2025, residential and commercial, inside the urban boundary (REGA).

So the cap sits on the expensive, fast-growing city, and the cheaper, flatter one has none.

Inside Jeddah, rents vary 4.52x. Al Khalidiyah averages SAR 567.6/sqm a year on 139 contracts, Al Mahamid SAR 125.5 on 141. Those are the two ends of the 109 districts with at least 30 contracts (REGA).

Foreign owners pay 2% when they sell

The law on non-Saudi property ownership took effect on 22 January 2026 (REGA). On 23 June 2026 the Council of Ministers, meeting in Jeddah, approved its regulation and, separately, the zones where non-Saudis may own (Umm Al-Qura). The regulation was published on 3 July 2026.

Article 9 sets a fee of 2% of value when a non-Saudi disposes of a property right, for every type of right and use. It applies in Riyadh city, Makkah city, Madinah city and Jeddah governorate. Article 10 sets no fee anywhere else (Umm Al-Qura).

The fee is charged when the owner sells or disposes, so it belongs in the exit line of a model, which is where it is easiest to forget. Jeddah is also the only one of the four defined as a governorate rather than a city, so its zone covers more ground than Riyadh's.

Two other regimes stop at the capital. Jeddah has no rent cap: the freeze can only extend beyond Riyadh by a REGA board decision approved by the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, and none has been published. Jeddah has no Real Estate Registry phase either. The notices name Riyadh, Qassim, the Eastern Province, Madinah and Makkah city. Makkah's window ran from 19 January to 24 April 2025 and covered 19,239 properties (REGA). No notice we have read since then names Jeddah.

What is not published

No authority publishes a Jeddah price index, yield, vacancy rate, off-plan licence count or mortgage figure. Credit data is national only. SAMA put bank real-estate lending at SAR 951.3 billion in Q4 2025, up 7.7% on a year earlier (SAMA monthly bulletin, table 12e).

On future supply, only Jeddah Central, a PIF company, publishes real unit counts: 5.7 million sqm, 17,000 homes and 2,700 hotel rooms, with phase 1 due end 2027 (Jeddah Central). Other Jeddah pipeline totals trace back to private brokerage surveys.

Commercial rents are missing too. REGA registered 94,919 Jeddah commercial leases in 2025 and priced none. All 1,184 rows print zero, and the last priced series ends at Q4 2024.

We rebuild Jeddah from the registries district by district, with the deed or contract count on every figure (the national series). Ask for the Jeddah district tables, including the 3,647 district rows REGA no longer publishes.

FAQ

What is the average price per square metre in Jeddah? On REGA's Q1 2026 city file: apartments SAR 3,876.00/sqm on 4,307 deeds, land SAR 2,383.22 on 3,134, villas SAR 3,481.25 on 142. That average is a mean of per-deed prices, not value over area. On land the two differ by 156%.

Is Jeddah cheaper than Riyadh, and by how much? Yes. In Q1 2026 a Jeddah apartment cost 33.9% less per square metre than one in Riyadh. Registered apartment rent in Q4 2025 was 20.7% lower.

Have Jeddah rents actually risen? Barely. The average apartment contract went from SAR 20,902.83 in Q1 2019 to SAR 23,767.91 in Q4 2024, up 13.7% in six years. Riyadh's rose 44.2%.

Can a foreigner buy property in Jeddah? Yes. Since 3 July 2026 a non-Saudi pays a 2% fee when selling or otherwise disposing of property in Jeddah governorate, as in Riyadh, Makkah and Madinah cities. A non-resident buyer needs a Ministry of Interior digital identity, a Saudi bank account and a Saudi phone number first (Article 2).

Sources

• REGA open data, sales transaction indicators (deeds, values, SAR/sqm, districts) and rental indicators back to Q1 2019, Makkah and Riyadh regions: link
• Ministry of Justice, quarterly deed extracts (MOJ-Sales-2025-Q4.csv), cited by file name: the ministry's portals do not respond to this infrastructure
• GASTAT, Real Estate Price Index Q2 2026 (region legs, villa sub-index): link
• GASTAT, Census 2022 housing tables (occupied dwellings, dwelling type), cited by file name
• SAMA monthly bulletin table 12e (bank real-estate credit, Q4 2025 print), cited by file name
• Umm Al-Qura, Council of Ministers session of 23 June 2026 (geographical zones approved): link
• Umm Al-Qura, Executive Regulation of the Non-Saudi Real Estate Ownership System, 3 July 2026 (Articles 2, 9, 10): link
• REGA, non-Saudi ownership system enters into force, 22 January 2026: link
• REGA, Riyadh five-year rent freeze, 25 September 2025: link
• REGA, rent payment on new residential leases restricted to digital channels from 15 January 2024: link
• REGA, Real Estate Registry commencement for 28 Makkah neighbourhoods (19,239 properties): link
• Jeddah Central Development Company, project scope, unit counts and phasing: link