RIYADH — The monthly bulletin of The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) announced that mortgage loans in 2019 increased 255% by 179,217 contracts offered to individuals by banks and financing institutions.

Housing loans jumped 3.6 times worth a total of SR79 billion with 168% compared to 2018, which recorded 50,496 contracts with a value of about SR29.5 billion.

The report indicated that 2019 has hit the highest records in the history of banks and financing institutions in terms of contracts and funding amounts. The monthly average lending rates increased more than 800% compared to 2018, which recorded lending rates of 2,000 contracts.

In December 2019, newly signed mortgage loans recorded the highest monthly lending rates in the history of banks by 23,324 contracts increased 260% compared to December 2018 that recorded 6475 contracts.

The volume of real estate financing increased by 173% year-on-year with SR10 billion, compared to 3.6 billion in December 2018.

According to SAMA, 94% of new individual mortgage loans were concluded through banks, while 6% of them through financing companies.

The 22,283 housing product loans subsidized by government programs concluded in December 2019, constituted 96% of the total number of contracts with a value of 9.3 billion, or about 94% of the value of the funds.

In December, residential villas acquired the largest portion of funding with 8,078 billion, or about 82% of the total funding provided by banks and financing companies.

Residential apartments came in second with 1,204 billion (12%). Residential lands come in third with 577 million (6%).

According to SAMA, the total number of mortgage contracts offered by the end of 2018 was 50,496 with a total value of R29.5 billion, and in 2017 about 30,833 contracts with value of SR21,025 billion, while 2016 was about 22,259 contracts worth SR17,096 billion. — SG