“These decisions will contain the unjustified rise in the rents of flats and villas,” said Omar Al-Faridi, a real estate agent.
Real estate prices in the Kingdom, he added, are based on supply and demand.
“Whenever there is a big demand, the prices of real estate and housing units go up, but the new decrees will have a combined impact in reducing prices,” he told Arab News.
In one of the new decrees, King Abdullah instructed the Finance Ministry to allocate a SR40 billion to the Real Estate Development Fund in addition to the SR40 billion allocated last month.
“These decisions will bring down the prices to the levels from seven years ago because of the increase in supply,” Al-Faridi said, referring to the plan to establish 500,000 new housing units.
Fahd Al-Sharief, another real estate agent, said citizens would benefit considerably from the welfare programs as it would help resolve their housing problem.
“These decrees will bring about tremendous changes in the real estate market as it involves investment of more than SR300 billion and will help every citizen to have a decent house,” he added.
Meanwhile, a number of citizens said the plan to establish 500,000 new housing units would bring down rents immediately. However, Nasser Al-Suwaih, who works in the education sector, said he feared that realtors would exploit the new decrees to raise prices because of the increased number of housing loans.
“I am afraid that the greed of real estate businessmen will defeat the aim of this whole program, which is to improve the living conditions of citizens,” Al-Suwaih said. “I know that some greedy businessmen will try to increase real estate prices to exploit citizens.”
