Atheer – Oman News Agency
The Sultanate’s real estate market is showing signs of recovering, with sale deals indicating robust growth over the first two months of the current year.
Reflecting market trends and investor sentiment, the total value of property deals in the country over January and February rose by 24.6 percent to 565.3 million Omani Rials over the last year, according to the latest monthly statistics released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
Fees collected from legal transactions stood at 15.5 million Rials, comprising an increase by 21.2 percent.
Of the total value in the first two months, 179.5 million Rials worth of deals were sale contracts, constituting a decline of 7.4 percent, while 382.3 million Rials’ worth of transactions were mortgage deals.
As many as 10,611 sale contracts were executed in January and February, compared with 10,615 deals for the same period of last year. It seems that the recent firm trend in oil prices and the recovery in economic activity is aiding a firm trend in real estate market as well.
However, the total number of mortgage contracts plunged 24.6 percent to 2,545, worth 382.3 million in the first two months of 2018.
The value of exchange contracts rose 7.4 percent to 3.5 million Rials, as the number of exchange contracts rose 76.8 percent to 290.
Furthermore, 44,958 plots were allocated in the first two months of 2018, in comparison to the 40,254 plots allocated last year, indicating a growth of 11.7 percent.
271 plots were allocated to GCC citizens over January and February.
