According to the top real estate expert ‘CB Richard Ellis’ (CBRE), there are currently USD 1.36 trillion worth of real estate projects planned or under construction across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with Saudi Arabia having the largest share with 64.5% of all projects, around USD 877 billion, followed by the UAE with 21.6% of all regional projects.
CBRE in its recent report, ‘2023 Middle East Real Estate Market Outlook’ stated that there will be strong levels of occupier and investment activity this year because of improved economic growth and elevated oil prices. This will support a positive outlook for the Middle East’s real estate sectors.
It is anticipated that the economies of Gulf Cooperation Council nations would continue to rise rapidly this year. Both the hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon industries are likely to continue to offer considerable contributions to headline growth rates. According to the report, the average GDP growth rate for the GCC nations will be 2.7% in 2023.
CBRE pointed out that the residential sector in the Gulf Cooperation Council’s price performance was dispersed last year.
“First, on a positive note, where we have seen prices decline, it has been relatively marginal. However, price growth in Dubai and Riyadh have significantly outpaced the regional average. In 2022, the UAE was the only market to record price growth and transaction volume growth across all cities and sectors,” it stated in the report.
“In Dubai, whilst we do expect transaction volumes to soften year-on-year, we expect that prices will continue to increase, across both the apartment and villas segments of the market, albeit at a slower rate. In Abu Dhabi, we are forecasting growth in both the volume of transactions and the rate of price growth over the course of the coming year,” it added.
Over the next year, price performance in Saudi Arabia’s apartment and villa markets is projected to become more polarized. While apartment prices are predicted to continue to decrease, villa prices are anticipated to rise, albeit at slower rates.