The Ministry of Rural and Municipal Affairs said on Monday that 2.2 million land plots, representing 55 percent of all developed land in the Kingdom, has been allocated for housing. The figures came during a ministry workshop on the development of governmental residential land grants and came in the light of a recent HSBC report showing that the Kingdom needed one million new homes by the year 2014. The report described the Saudi real estate market as offering important investment opportunities compared to other GCC countries, but did not expect the housing shortage to be resolved any time soon, meaning a continued rise in house prices and rents.
