Riyadh- Amlak
His Excellency Dr. Shuwaish bin Saud Al-Duwaihi, Minister of Housing, explained that the activation of the Land and Loan decision will take place about a year after the completion of the eligibility mechanism and the preparation of infrastructure in the sites received by the Ministry. The Minister of Housing discussed the details of the approval of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, to adopt a number of decisions that ensure the acceleration of the implementation of housing units for citizens, including the “Land and Loan” program, praising the historic royal decisions during his hosting on the “Sahib Qarar” program, hosted by Yahya Al Amir, on the first channel of Saudi TV.

The Minister of Housing said that the start of the implementation of the Land and Loan program will take place after about a year.

Infrastructure
The Minister of Housing said: ”Through the royal order, the ministry will take over the planning of sites, establish infrastructure for them, and link them with loans, and this order will accelerate the development process and make the citizen get housing support in half the time that was expected through housing projects.”
He added: ”One of the advantages of the royal order is that it will accelerate the arrival of housing support to the deserving, and the housing is built according to their desire, and will give the ministry a wider field to pump more sites, prepare land, and increase the percentage of citizens” ownership of housing units.”


On the current projects, he said: ”The projects will be completed and there are two sites received in the Jazan region, while those that have not started work will implement the infrastructure and deliver according to the mechanism of entitlement, and the projects that are being implemented include 17 thousand housing units.” He pointed out that the projects and the land and loan decision will all be distributed according to the entitlement and priority mechanism for which the ministry has concluded a contract with Al-Alam Information Security Company, which is the mechanism that aims to reach the support to its beneficiaries and includes two parts, the first is entitlement and the second is priority.
He said: ”Entitlement includes those who own a house and those who do not because there must be justice and transparency, and the mechanism needs information in order to complete it, including building permits and building completion certificate from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, deeds from the Ministry of Justice, and information from the electricity company.”

Duwaihi added. <Al-Duwaihi added: ”All information must be available, and we have obtained some of it, such as names and ages, noting that housing support is directed to families and not to individuals, and the mechanism was reviewed during its study to review the experiences of several countries, so the priority will be according to the points that combine the elements of entitlement.” He explained:” We need information currently, the most important of which are building licenses and building completion certificates, and even if we receive paper, we hope that it will arrive within months in order to start delivering ready-made projects, we expect to start applying the land and loan decision within a year, we are waiting for two important elements only, which are the eligibility list and building infrastructure for sites, so within two months tenders will be issued for the construction of infrastructure for a number of sites.”

Loan value
Regarding the value of the loan, Al-Duwaihi said:” It will be 500 thousand riyals, and it will not differ from one region to another, and as for the land, it is available, praise be to God, as for the area, it has not been determined yet, in previous projects it was 500 meters and will not be shortened with citizens.”

About the impact of the recent decisions. <Regarding the impact of the recent decisions on land prices, he explained: ”We have submitted proposals according to the housing strategy that includes imposing fees on white lands with incentives for their owners to invest them, but as for the purchase of land by the ministry, the matter is not on the table and is not among the current concerns.”

Distribution and wasta
In response to concerns about the entry of wasta in the distribution, he said: ”The merit list aims to reach the support to the deserving, prioritize, and be an immediate response to the applicant, whether merit or non-merit and the reason for this is because it must be fair and transparent.” He added: “We are working with full capacity to finalize the list, and it is not on the agenda at the moment.” We are working at full capacity to complete the regulation, which will clarify the housing ratio, currently our source is the Department of Statistics, and we found that 60% of families live in homes they own, and the number of occupied housing from citizens is 3 million housing, a small part of the housing is not decent, and the current applicants to the Real Estate Development Fund are 2.3 million." Al-Duwaihi revealed that according to some of the procedures that were applied to the recent real estate fund payments, we found people who have more than one house. The Minister of Housing explained that the Real Estate Fund has provided about 150,000 loans over the past two years, indicating that the ministry is coordinating with the Riyadh Development Authority to take advantage of parts of the central Riyadh neighborhoods: "According to the royal order, the ministry will continue to build when the need arises, and a balance will be achieved in housing, and the Ministry of Finance has been tasked with approving the infrastructure."

The Minister of Housing explained that the Real Estate Fund provided about 150,000 loans in the past two years