Real estate sales
double to $14 billion

82,000 sales transactions recorded

The value of sales contracts recorded at the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre (GDLRC) more than doubled to $14 billion in 2020 compared with the previous year, according to GDLRC data. The number of contracts jumped 63 percent year-on-year to around 82,200.



Source: Land Registry and Cadastre

Massaad Fares, Secretary General of the Real Estate Developers Association (REDAL), said that these figures include sales deals that were concluded in previous years. He said that with the collapse of the lira many buyers who didn’t register their properties on time seized the opportunity to do so now as the registration fees have decreased substantially when assessed in dollars.

According to Fares, the sales trend is not expected to continue at the same pace as last year. He said that the stock of new apartments for sale has decreased and many developers have settled their debt. Those that have done so don’t accept banker’s checks anymore.

In recent years and prior to the banking crisis, real estate sales were witnessing a persistent downtrend. They declined by 17 percent in 2019.