Riyadh – Mubasher: Financing institutions in Saudi Arabia offered 155,893 mortgage loans worth SAR 69 billion ($18.395 billion) in the first eleven months of 2019, as per official data.

The number of housing loans increased by 254%, while its total value surged by 167%, according to the monthly bulletin of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) for November 2019, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

New mortgage loans rose by 13,000 to 20,525 loans in November, of which 94% were through commercial banks, while 6% were provided by other financing institutions.

Housing loans, subsidized by the Saudi government programs, reached 19,015 in November, making up 93% of the total number of contracts, worth SAR 8.3 billion.

Residential villas dominated 80% of the total funding at SAR 7.192 billion, while apartments accounted to around 14% with SAR 1.3 billion, while lands made 6% of the total with SAR 546 million.

It is worth noting that last year, roughly 50,500 mortgage loans were offered with a total value of SAR 29.5 billion, compared with roughly SAR 21 billion in 2017 and around SAR 17 billion in 2016.