Real estate sector starts to show signs of recovery — stakeholders

AMMAN — The real estate sector in the Kingdom is slowly gaining momentum despite the pandemic crisis, according to stakeholders.

The total area of authorised buildings has increased to 6.292 million square metres during the first nine months of 2021, compared with 3.849 million square metres during the same period in 2020, according to the Department of Statistics (DoS).

“Buying an apartment is a huge commitment, but especially this year, Jordanians, whether who live in the Kingdom or abroad were somehow encouraged by the pandemic, to buy apartments or houses as a form of protection during crises,” Samer Samir, a contractor, told The Jordan Times on Wednesday. 

He added that the pandemic has severely affected the housing sector and construction activities in Jordan, but during this year it started to recover.

Significant numbers of people inquire about the prices of apartments with two to three rooms, “therefore if demand picks up in the coming year as it did during 2021, Jordan will have a more robust recovery,” said Yaqoub Omar, a contractor.

In the first 10 months of 2021, more than 33,000 apartments were sold, and around 37,000 apartments are expected to be sold by the end of 2021, Jordan Housing Developers Association (JHDA) President Kamal Awamleh, recently told The Jordan Times.

In the Kingdom, more than 4,500 land plots were sold to construction companies during the first 10 months of 2021, according to Awamleh. 

The total number of building permits that were issued in the Kingdom reached 19,742 during the  first nine months of 2021, compared with 12,962 permits during the same period in 2020, rising by 52.3 per cent, a report by the DoS showed.

According to the report, the area of authorised buildings allocated for residential purposes represented approximately 87.7 per cent of the total area of authorised buildings during the first nine months of 2021.