Saudi property prices fall for first time in five years

• Index dips 0.7% in last quarter of 2025
• Government aims to cool market
• Residential property prices down 2.2%

Property prices in Saudi Arabia have fallen for the first time in five years following a raft of government measures aimed at pulling them lower.

The real estate price index, which is released by the General Authority for Statistics (Gastat), recorded a 0.7 percent decline in the last quarter of 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of 2024.

The drop stemmed largely from a 2.2 percent decrease in residential property prices.

The overall drop was the first since the fourth quarter of 2020 and the steepest since 2019.

Real estate price appreciation slowed in the third quarter to 1.3 percent after the government implemented decisions to combat the rising cost of housing that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has called “unacceptable”.

The cost of housing was the biggest driver of inflation last year, according to Gastat, with rent increasing 8.2 percent compared to 2024.

Companies providing services to renters say an increasing number of people are struggling to meet rent payments.

In September, the Saudi government announced a five-year rent freeze in Riyadh on residential and commercial property.

This is in addition to other measures the government has brought in to reduce property prices including increasing the “white land tax” on unused or undeveloped land and auctioning large plots of vacant land to small buyers.

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