The Ministry of Housing has fulfilled the equivalent of 75% of this year's residential program for 280 thousand residential and financial products, as it announced yesterday in a press conference the details of the ninth installment of the “Residential” program, where the total number of announced residential and financial products reached 30569 products, distributed in all regions of the Kingdom, and varied between developed free land, residential units through the off-plan sale program, and subsidized financing, bringing the number of residential and financial products announced since the launch of the program to more than 215 thousand residential and financial products.

12 exhibitions allocating 20 thousand residential units.

12 exhibitions to allocate 20,000 housing units that vary

<His Royal Highness Prince Saud bin Talal bin Badr Al Saud, Advisor and General Supervisor of the Ministry's Agency for Housing Support and Branches, stressed that the ninth installment of the program comes as an extension of the previous installments through which the Ministry seeks to achieve its target during this year by providing 280,000 housing and financing products, pointing out that in conjunction with this installment, 12 exhibitions are held in a number of cities in the Kingdom through which more than 20,000 housing units, ranging from villas and townhouses, will be allocated: “The great demand witnessed by the Ministry's exhibitions has resulted in the completion of the reservation of 4 projects, namely North Riyadh, Al-Mubarz in Al-Ahsa Governorate, and two Emaar Rabigh projects, with a total of more than three thousand housing units,” he said, noting that the coming period will witness the launch of more exhibitions in a number of cities of the Kingdom.

11 agreements with the private sector

The details of the announcement of the ninth installment included the signing of 11 agreements with real estate developers to implement 13 projects with a total of 13,903 housing units, and explained that these agreements include two projects in the city of Riyadh, and nine projects in the Eastern Province distributed among the cities of Dammam, Al-Ahsa, Al-Khobar and Qatif, in addition to a project in Yanbu Al-Bahr Governorate in the Medina region, and another in Sakaka city in Al-Jouf region.

Details of the ninth installment announcement included the signing of 11 agreements with real estate developers. <For his part, Ahmed Mandoura, General Supervisor of the Private Sector Partnership Program at the Ministry of Housing, explained that one of the fruits of the partnership with the private sector is to start building thousands of housing units with various options and high quality at prices ranging from 250,000 to 700,000 riyals, stressing that the units provided through off-plan sales exhibitions will play a role in providing adequate housing for citizens, as they are delivered within a period not exceeding 3 years from the date of allocation, in addition to their impact on reducing waiting periods and achieving the main goal of raising the ownership rate to 52% in line with the Kingdom's vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020.

21.5 thousand financing products and the completion of 75% of the residential program

The figures showed the allocation of 13903 housing units through the off-plan sales program in partnership with real estate development companies, 8699 free land in a number of regions of the Kingdom, and 7700 subsidized financing in partnership with financial institutions and local banks, bringing the total number of housing and financing products allocated since the launch of the program early this year to 215075 housing and financing products, two months before the end of the first phase of the program, which aims to reach 280 thousand housing and financing products during 2017.

Financing guarantees and the completion of 75% of the residential program.

Mortgage guarantees

Khaled Al-Amoudi, General Supervisor of the Real Estate Development Fund, pointed out that the Fund continues through the payments of the “Residential” program to reduce waiting lists and accelerate access to subsidized financing in partnership with banks and financial institutions, which will reduce the waiting period from 11 years to a maximum of 5 years, indicating that the new mechanism for subsidized financing works to achieve support for 6 citizens compared to one citizen in the previous mechanism.

<Al Amoudi referred to the decision taken by the Board of Directors of the Fund to launch the “Mortgage Finance Guarantees” program, which aims to provide mortgage financing for beneficiaries applying to the Real Estate Development Fund, by banks and financing companies to cover the risk ratio for financing entities, in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and the Monetary Authority, pointing out that it is expected to serve a large segment of those on the waiting lists, and will be implemented as soon as the procedures for it are completed, and the Board of Directors approved the transfer of loan applications that are still pending (valid application status), whose owners wish to waive them to a relative of their degree.