Real estate investment in Riyadh

It can be, but the profit does not come from the market in general; it comes from the specific deal: the purchase price, the rent the unit actually earns, the costs and the months it stands empty. In Riyadh in particular, rents have been frozen for five years, so your rental income will not rise during that time. That is why you should work out the net yield from year one, not from growth expectations. The calculator on this page does that with your own numbers.

There is no single official percentage that applies to every property. Any figure quoted without a source, a district, a unit type and a period is not a number to base a decision on. The more accurate method is to divide net annual rent by the total purchase cost. REGA publishes average prices and rents for each district on its Real Estate Indicators platform.

In three steps. Add up the full purchase cost: the price plus the Real Estate Transaction Tax and any other fees. Then work out net annual income: rent after deducting vacant months, maintenance, owners’ association fees and management. Then divide net income by the purchase cost. The result is the net yield, and it is always lower than the gross yield most adverts quote.

By the numbers, not by reputation: the average price per m² in the district’s transactions, the average rent, the yield the two produce — comparing like with like, apartment against apartment and villa against villa. Then ask about what the numbers do not tell you: how close the district is to workplaces and main roads, the level of services, and the kind of tenant it attracts. Official figures for every district are available on REGA’s Real Estate Indicators platform.

No. North Riyadh draws the largest share of attention, attention usually shows up in the purchase price, and a higher price lowers the rental yield unless rent rises by the same amount. So a district in the west or east can yield more than a sought-after district in the north. We build on all four sides of the city ourselves, and the district table on this page puts them side by side.

It depends on your goal. An apartment is usually cheaper and quicker to let and resell; a villa puts more capital into a single asset and suits a different tenant. What matters most is to compare each with its own type — an apartment against the apartment average in its district, a villa against the villa average — because REGA publishes each type’s averages separately. Our projects for sale offer both: apartments and floors in Al Yasmin, apartments in Al Hamra, floors in Al Muruj, and villas and townhouses in Al Raed and Umm Al Hamam West.

No one can promise you the next direction of prices, and we will not. What you can know is the published trend: REGA publishes a quarterly residential property price index and average transactions for each district. The safer decision is not built on predicting a rise or a fall, but on a rental yield that justifies today’s purchase price even if prices stay where they are.

Yes. The Non-Saudi Real Estate Ownership Law has been in force since 22 January 2026 and covers residents of the Kingdom, investors from outside it and non-Saudi companies, within geographic zones designated by the Council of Ministers. A legal resident may also own one residential property outside those zones. Applications are made through REGA’s Saudi Properties platform. This explains the law; it is not legal advice.

Within the approved geographic zones, which are shown on the Saudi Properties platform map. In Makkah and Madinah, ownership by non-Saudis is limited to Muslim individuals, under special controls. Before reserving any unit — with us or anyone else — check its location on the official map. We will send you the exact coordinates of any of our projects so you can check for yourself.

A non-Saudi’s purchase is subject to the Real Estate Transaction Tax like any other, plus a fee on transactions by non-Saudis whose ceiling is set in Article 9 of the law. Any owner, Saudi or not, may be charged an annual fee if their property is left vacant for a long period without acceptable reason. The rates and their sources are in the fees table on this page. We give no opinion on income tax on rent; consult ZATCA.

Yes, and the lease is registered on the Ejar platform. Two Riyadh rules matter to you: rent cannot be increased during the freeze period, and a property that has been let before has its rent fixed at the last contract registered on Ejar. A new unit that has never been let has its first rent agreed freely between landlord and tenant. In other words, a new unit’s first rent is the figure that sets your income for the whole freeze period.

Calculating the net yield of the specific unit before you reserve, not after. Add up the full purchase cost, estimate a realistic rent for the unit from its district average, and deduct costs and vacant months. If the net yield does not justify the price today, do not count on rising prices to justify it tomorrow. Then check your eligibility if you are not Saudi, and the project’s licence if it is sold off-plan.