Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — With the vision 2030, and the economy adjusting to lower economic growth, it is expected that 2017 would become a watershed year for the Kingdom's real estate market, said an expert during JLL, the world's leading real estate investment and advisory firm, event that took place at Hilton Jeddah. JLL event unveiled 2017 top trends for Saudi Arabia's Real Estate market and released their Q1 2017 Jeddah market report and presented the major trends that the JLL has forecasted that are affecting the Kingdom's real estate this year. During the event, which was held on April 11, Craig Plumb, head of research, JLL, MENA, explained that they are forecasting an increase in activity in the real estate sector through the public investment fund 'PIF', the listing of further Real Estate Investment Trusts 'REITs', taxation reforms, and a series of public private partnerships. He mentioned that the Saudi government is expanding the leisure and tourism sector to attract visitors to the country and it is focusing on diversifying the economy. There is also a prediction that healthcare and education sectors will be attractive to investors. At global level, United States of America, Australia, and India, are three markets that are expected to be economically stronger this year and in 2018, while China, United Kingdom, and Germany are ‘going down' as mentioned during the event. He added that the government is adopting the strategy of increasing in expenditure and there is an increase in spending. He mentioned that the government revenues are increasing. This year the revenue is combination of the oil production revenue and new resources of government, including, real estate market itself and growth of hospitality. During the event it was mentioned that the government strategy is to make real estate more significant and to grab more investors as years go by.
