<The meeting organized by the Riyadh Chamber last week, entitled (Real Estate Investment Funds and their role in the real estate market) revealed that the volume of real estate investment funds by the end of 2021 reached about (140) billion riyals, and Nader Al Omari, a member of the Real Estate Committee, indicated that the emergence of real estate funds came as a natural extension of the development of capital markets, confirming the development of this investment product and the market's acceptance of it, and Al Omari expected that these funds will lead the wheel of development in the real estate sector for several reasons, including that they represent a link, separation and security between the legislative authorities, the investor, the developer and the final consumer. He also emphasized that the success of real estate funds depends on the capabilities of the fund manager's team, its cumulative experience, complementary relationships with the various relevant authorities and agility in making appropriate decisions. For his part, Sultan Al-Qusair, Head of Alternative Investments at Alinmaa Investment Company, explained that the size of the REIT asset offering is (100) billion riyals, pointing out that the idea of real estate investment funds is based on the use of funds and that from an organizational point of view it is divided into private and public offering funds and REIT funds.

Real Estate Investment Funds (REITs). Sultan Al-Qusair said that the public offering funds are not widespread and are less in number and their financial volume reaches (8) billion riyals, explaining that it has not witnessed an increase for (5) years, and as for the REIT funds, he pointed out that they and private real estate funds are witnessing an increase as the share of real estate funds to date estimated (140) billion is still small compared to the size of the Saudi real estate market as a whole which reaches (2-3) trillion riyals.

Real estate investment funds.