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 banks are writing far fewer new mortgages, but their real estate loan book keeps getting bigger. New home loans fell by almost a third in the first half of 2026, while the stock of loans outstanding still rose 6.37% in a year. Both come from the same SAMA bulletin. One counts what is lent each month, the other what is still owed.
Key figures
| Metric | Value | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real estate loans held by banks | SAR 967.9bn, +6.37% YoY | Q1 2026 | SAMA bulletin, Table 12e |
| New residential mortgages, banks | SAR 32.1bn on 48,714 contracts, -31.25% YoY | H1 2026 | SAMA bulletin, Table 12f |
| New residential mortgages, banks | SAR 80.4bn on 108,795 contracts | FY2025 | SAMA bulletin, Table 12f |
| Bank credit to "Real Estate Activities" | SAR 409.0bn | Q1 2026 | SAMA bulletin, Table 12d |
| 3-month SAIBOR | 4.7418% | Jun 2026 | SAMA bulletin, interest rates table |
New lending is back where it was in 2019
Banks advanced SAR 80.4 billion of new home loans in 2025, about half the 2021 peak of SAR 152.5 billion. The first half of 2026 was weaker again, at SAR 32.1 billion. June, the latest month, came in at SAR 5.7 billion on 8,834 contracts.
Buyers are also borrowing less per home. The average new loan in H1 2026 was SAR 659,933, 12.71% below a year earlier. It isn't a shift to apartments: villas still made up 64.4% of the value lent in H1 2026.
The loan book grows anyway
Outstanding loans rose every quarter, from SAR 909.9 billion at Q1 2025 to SAR 967.9 billion a year later. Individuals owe SAR 740.5 billion of that, companies SAR 227.4 billion.
Most of that book was written in the 2019 to 2022 boom and is being paid down on schedule. A slow year of new lending takes a long time to show up in the stock.
Cheaper money has not brought buyers back
Three-month SAIBOR, the interbank rate mortgages are priced off, averaged 4.808% in H1 2026 against 5.413% a year earlier. That is about 60 basis points cheaper, and new lending still fell 31%. Rates alone do not explain the drop. SAMA doesn't publish an actual mortgage rate, so the bank margin on top is unknown.
We estimate roughly three new mortgages in four are subsidised, using the Housing Program's count of 93,000+ subsidised contracts in 2024 (Housing Program Annual Report 2024) against 125,326 new contracts that year. The two counts come from different bodies, so treat it as an order of magnitude. Monthly lending probably follows subsidy allocation more closely than prices or rates.
Why SAMA gives two figures for developer lending
Ask how much banks lend to real estate companies and SAMA gives two answers for the same quarter. Table 12e, which sorts loans by what they finance, says SAR 227.4 billion. Table 12d, which sorts credit by what the borrower does, says SAR 409.0 billion. A property company's working-capital line counts in the second and not the first.
The gap matters because the bigger number gets quoted as property lending. Arab News reported SR384 billion of real estate financing in August 2025 (Arab News). Matched against the bulletin, that is Table 12d.
Outlook
For a developer reading demand, the monthly mortgage figure is the one to watch, and the first quarter after a subsidy change is usually where it moves.
Omran archives each month's SAMA workbook, since SAMA only serves the current one. Ask for the SAMA credit tables, or see the data sources page and the mortgage market page.
Sources
- SAMA Monthly Statistical Bulletin, June 2026 edition (Tables 12d, 12e, 12f, interest rates): landing page, June 2026 workbook
- Vision 2030 Housing Program Annual Report 2024 (Arabic): link
- Arab News, 18 August 2025 (the SR384bn figure): link