Several landlords in Makkah are edgy as the combined losses in rents of their buildings have assumed alarming proportions. Every Haj season, landlords in Central Area in Makkah and Al-Azizia District force their tenants to vacate the buildings so as to rent them to Haj missions on exorbitant rates capitalizing on the huge demand for housings during the peak season. The landlords were encouraged by the astronomical increase in the rents of apartments which reached 90 to 100 percent during Ramadan. However this made them stick to this ceiling but the heads of the Haj missions and internal Tawafa establishments dashed their hopes by renting residential units in remote areas. The frustrated landlords are still clinging to the hope that some of the representatives of the Haj missions and domestic Haj establishments would approach them so that they may compensate part of the huge losses at SR300 million they incurred. Experts in the real estate field stressed that the skyrocketing rents made the heads of the Haj missions and owners of domestic Haj establishments think of alternatives to face the greed of the landlords. Rent of buildings away from the Central Region is 80 percent cheaper than areas around the Grand Mosque. In the Central Area, the rents for an individual pilgrim had reached SR6,000 to SR7000 in the last ten days of Ramadan.
