The monthly report issued by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) announced that mortgage loans in March 2020 continue to increase 91% by 23,247 contracts offered to individuals by banks and financing institutions. Housing loans last month were worth more than SR11 billion with 99% compared to March 2019 that recorded 12,148 contracts with a value of SR5,560 billion. March mortgage loans also increased by 3% from the previous month of February 2020. According to the report, individual mortgage loans reached 71.5 thousand contracts, valued nearly SR31.8 billion, provided by all real estate financing institutions and banks, during the first quarter 2020. They registered a growth of 127% in the number of loans and about 113% in loans compared to the same quarter of 2019. The SAMA report indicates that 97% of newly signed mortgage loans were concluded through banks, while 3% of them through financing companies. The 21,978 housing product loans subsidized by government programs concluded in March 2020, constituted 95% of the total number of contracts with a value of 10.4 billion, or about 94% of the value of the funds. In March, residential villas acquired the largest portion of funding with SR8,865 billion, or about 80% of the total funding provided by banks and financing companies. Residential apartments came in second with SR1,756 billion (16%). Residential lands come in third with 421 million (4%). According to SAMA real estate mortgage in 2019 jumped 3 times in a historical performance with 179,217 contracts with value of SR79,128 billion compared to that offered in 2018 of 50,496 contracts with a value of SR29.5 billion, in 2017 about 30,833 contracts with value of SR21,025 billion, and in 2016 it was about 22,259 contracts worth 17,096 billion.— SG
