Saudi office market activity slowly picking up, says expert

Saudi office market activity slowly picking up, says expert

In Jeddah, despite the lack of activity and with limited availability in the Grade A segment, Grade A rents rose by 10.8% in the first quarter, whereas Grade B rents continued to soften and fell by 4.3%.

Grade A rents in Dammam and Khobar increased by 4.0% and 2.6% respectively, with Grade A rents in both locations now above their pre-pandemic levels.

Residential transaction volumes in Saudi Arabia fell by 23.4% in Q1 2022, compared to a year earlier, while the total value of transactions fell marginally by 1.9%. During this period, the number of transactions totaled 60,336 and the value of transactions reached SR40.41 billion.

In Riyadh, the total number of transactions in Q1 fell by 21.6%, and it also fell in the Damam Metropolitan Area (DMA) by 31.8%. Jeddah on the other hand saw transactions volumes increase by 5.4% in the 12 months to Q1 2022.

Over the same period, average apartment prices in Saudi Arabia have increased by 9.6%, with prices in Riyadh, Khobar, Dammam and Jeddah increasing by 13.2%, 11.3%, 9.6% and 4.5% respectively.

Looking at Saudi Arabia’s hospitality sector, the average occupancy rate in the first quarter increased by 23.4 percentage points compared to a year earlier.

Over the same period,