Real Estate. Saudi Arabia is about to open up for outsiders.
Earlier this year I was invited out to Saudia Arabia to speak at a conference. LEAP is a Technology show, and normally wild horses would not be able to drag me to such an event. However the charismatic CEO of Tahaluf lured me there, not with the promise of fat appearance fees, but on the basis of ‘you just have to see it.’
A long time ago when Bitcoin was young I did a little youtube where I stated ‘it doesn’t matter how bad times are, if there is a recession or a market crash, a political uproar or war or famine, somewhere out there, there is a party going on. The trouble is you are not invited.’ The party was of course Crypto. The point was, you need to be on the lookout for that metaphorical party, find the location of the party and gatecrash it.
The party could simply be an asset like Bitcoin, a new exploding technology theme erupting like quantum computing did earlier this year, or even a place like Tokyo in 1999 or for that matter Silicon Valley since the first days I set foot there in the early 1980s. (…why or why did I leave!!!)
So when a bigwig like Michael Champion at LEAP says, there is something going on here and you need to see, I get engaged.
In a nutshell the party is in Saudi.
Now for an observer from far away, Saudi Arabia sits firmly in the swirling morass that is the Middle East, but if you have lived in Dubai off and on for a long time you realise the region is extremely varied and that the difference between Syria and Qatar for example is extreme.
…and LEAP was a bit of a revelation to me as far as Saudia Arabia was concerned, Saudi is a fast changing game.
Now I admit, give me a future potential and I’m your man to dive in and start trying to make something happen a decade or so before it’s the next big thing. I move into dockland when they are industrial wastelands, I get into industries before they are even invented, its what floats my boat and you can google for yourself my trail of OG’ing since my teens all those long years ago. Its borderline pathological. However now I older and slower I’m not so pioneer-ish, but nonetheless I can look at a desert and see unbounded potential or more accurately go to a huge technology show and realise something big is happening.
(Disclosure: I’m NOT on anyone’s payroll here. I’m just enthusiastic.)
So there is a challenge. How can you invest in Saudi and its potential. The answer is not easily, I might say, you can’t, well not as a normal person with sub private jet money.
…but wait that is all about to change.
Now I admit I’m not a fan of real estate, but I know that it is a global investor obsession. However, I’m the weirdo who doesn’t yearn for bricks and mortar. I have it but more because I’m a diversifier than an aficionado. I have real estate in Dubai and it’s been very good to me, but I’m not camping out to buy more. I love stocks, I loathe illiquid assets. I reiterate, I know it’s weird not to love real estate, but what comes next is because I know a lot of my readers love real estate and what follows will peak their interest.
So here goes. Saudia Arabia is going to open up to foreign ownership of real estate at the end of the year. So from Jan 1 2016 it’s been announced that you will be able to invest in Saudi real estate like you can in Dubai.
I found this out while I was at the LEAP show, so I managed to collar the boss of Cityscape, Rachel Sturgess, who heads up the definitive property show in Saudi Arabia and grilled her as much as was decent about what is going to happen.
In a nutshell, the kick off for foreign property ownership in Saudi is going to be 1/1/26 and non-Saudis will be able to buy developments in Riyahd and Jeddah. Reading between the lines its likely to be in the form of buying into condos and villas at the pre-build stage. It is highly likely to be done Dubai style, with huge developers putting together marque projects with all the razzmataz of that kind of thing. It is a formula that has worked so well in the UAE, its likely to be very similar in Saudi Arabia.
Now I try not to write investment advice and rather write opinion for readers to chew over and consider. So this article is about tipping off what is on its way, to people that like to invest in property. I’m simply saying, that one of the most happening and rich countries in the world, is for the first time about to crack open a real estate market for outsiders. If that’s the sort of thing you like, then 1 Jan 2026 is when the doors open and in the meantime, you should keep your eyes peeled for more announcements to come, about what that new opportunity will look like in practice.
So just like all investment opportunities, its always best to know about them before, than find out about them, after.