Two things are happening in Saudi real estate at once. The domestic housing engine is running hot, and the headline-grabbing giga-projects are being quietly rescoped. Both matter for 2026.
The Riyadh boom
Per Cavendish Maxwell, Riyadh residential sales values surged 63% year on year to SR65.7 billion (USD 17.5 billion) across 35,600 transactions in H1 2025; Jeddah rose 34%. Riyadh apartment prices climbed 10.5% and villas 12.4%, with rents up 10.3% and 14.4% respectively. National homeownership reached around 63.7 to 65.4% against a 70% Vision 2030 target, and Riyadh faces a gap near 305,000 units through 2034.
PIF developers carry the load
State-backed developers dominate. ROSHN holds a 300,000-plus home mandate and a SAR 200 billion-plus portfolio, with flagship Sedra at over 30,000 homes. New Murabba is building 104,000-plus units and the Mukaab around a USD 50 billion budget targeted for 2030. Diriyah Gate runs USD 63 billion, with King Salman Park and Qiddiya progressing.
From spectacle to viability
The recalibration is real. NEOM faces scale-backs: The Line is now expected to house fewer than 300,000 residents by 2030, down from 1.5 million. NEOM terminated several contracts and cancelled the Moonlight desalination plant.
Economy Minister Faisal al-Ibrahim described 2026 as the start of a Vision maturation phase; the Finance Minister said the Kingdom will defer or cancel uneconomic projects without blinking.
For the housing market, the rescoping is arguably healthy: capital and contractors that were committed to desert spectacle are freed for the Riyadh and Jeddah units the country actually needs, just as foreign ownership opens.