Rising Riyadh home prices push deals value up 6% but volume falls

Rising Riyadh home prices push deals value up 6% but volume falls

RIYADH: As residential prices continue to rise in Saudi Arabia’s cities, the total transaction value of houses in the Kingdom has increased by 6 percent compared to this time last year, the latest report from global property consultancy firm Knight Frank showed. The average apartment value has spiked as high as 30 percent in Riyadh over the last 12 months, with some of the well-located suburbs in northern parts of the city seeing rises over 40 percent, as the shortage in housing supply continues to play havoc on prices. This resulted in the number of housing deals slipping, with the volume of home sales this year falling by 24 percent, according to Knight Frank. “The affordability gulf between buyer expectations and the significant house price increases registered in cities across the Kingdom is underpinning the slowing in the number of home sales,” said Faisal Durrani, partner – head of Middle East Research at Knight Frank. Despite a strong pipeline of around 200,000 new homes for the capital by 2030, he said price growth remains on a sharp upward trajectory. As a result, the total volume of homes sold in the capital dipped by 30 percent in the year to the