Jordan real estate market surges 26% in 2010

The total value of real estate transactions in Jordan rose 26 percent last year, according to new official figures reported on Wednesday.

Figures from the Department of Lands and Survey (DLS) revealed that trading in the real estate sector increased from JD4.74bn ($6.68bn) in 2009 to JD5.97bn ($8.41bn) last year.

The number of apartments sold rose 15.6 percent to 23,721, while land transactions were up 18.9 percent to 65,714 in the same period.

Despite the rise in transactions, DLS said its revenues fell 11.4 percent to JD239.8m ($337.98m) in the last year, mainly due to the registration fee exemption introduced by the government in May 2009 for residential buyers.

The exemption was for the first 150 square metres of apartments sized 300 square metres or less. However, the government exemption ran out at the end of 2010.

In its third quarter report on Jordan, real estate analysts at Asteco described the residential sales market as showing “signs of activity with increased sales rates in the last three months”.

This was attributed to the growing number of local banks offering home finance packages.

The lack of high quality apartments in prime locations has also led to an increase in prices, which rose by around 2 percent in the third quarter.

In the rental market, Asteco said average rents also increased by up to 2 percent due to lack of supply in affluent areas of the capital of Amman.

It was noted that a rental freeze was issued on contracts issued for residential properties signed before 2000, to prevent escalating rental levels. However, this decree ran out at the end of 2010. Therefore, this is likely to lead to a rise in rents in early 2011.