Saudi retail mortgage loans triple in February 2018 lifted by government subsidy program: SAMA

Saudi retail real estate loans more than tripled year-on-year (YoY) in February 2019, as 9,736 mortgage loan contracts worth over SAR 4.6 billion were signed last month, compared to 3,143 contracts valued around SAR 2 billion a year earlier, data issued by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) showed.

The mortgage loans, offered by banks and financing firms, were boosted by the government’s initiative to offer subsidized financing in order to increase house ownership to 70 percent by 2030.

Under this initiative, which saw a 1.7 percent YoY increase in the number of subsidized mortgage loans, the government bears the mortgage interest rates.

The total value of the total of 19,314 mortgage loans offered by Saudi banks and financing firms from the beginning of 2019 till the end of February stood at around SAR 9.4 billion. The figure equals the total loans granted in the first half of 2018 (20,059 loans).

Subsidized mortgages offered by the Ministry of Housing’s initiatives of by the Real Estate Development Fund (REDF) account for about 84 percent of the total loans granted to Saudis in February.

The ministry’s housing subsidy program offered 77 percent of the total mortgage loans (SAR 3.6 billion), a 1 percent month-on-month (MoM) increase.

SAMA’s data also showed that around 92 percent (9,049 loans), of the housing loans were provided by commercial banks.

Financing institutions’ mortgage loans represented 8 percent of the total financing offered to Saudi individuals (687 loans).

In February 2018, lenders provided 3,143 retail mortgages valued at SAR 2.079 billion.

The value of retail mortgage loans in 2017 and 2016 reached SAR 18.9 billion (28,469 loans) and SAR 14.9 billion (20,132 loans), respectively.