Saudi housing ... Upsizing the conflict

Seventy percent of Saudis live in rented houses. If the Saudi population counts up to 30 million people, how many of those are Saudi nationals? Well, the Central Department of Statistics and Information says there are 19.8 million Saudi nationals until 2012. Roughly, this means that 14 million Saudis are accommodated in rented property.
Consequently, this means that 30 percent increment in rent rates and in crude land prices is expected to take place during the next few years.
Why is this happening in such a huge country like ours? The real estate sector is still in chaos. So many rules and regulations have to be presented and taken seriously. This sector, real estate, is mostly dominated by a number of names (long known for their contribution as developers) allowing them to control price indicators.
One of the current applicable solutions is that the newly born Ministry of Housing takes control of a bigger number of projects. But some specialists say that it is not that easy as long as the prices of land is determined by a third party called — the real-estate tycoons. Therefore, a quick interference of questioning the long monopoly of huge pieces of land within the most vivid parts of our big cities, can be a good start to control the conflict.

• The writer is chairman of the Saudi Cartoon & Animation Society
Twitter: @abdullahsayel