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Saudi mortgage volumes ease as September bank tickets shrink.

Argaam’s September tape on saudi mortgage volumes showed about 9,680 bank deals with individuals and a smaller average residential loan size.

Makanah, Saudi Arabia. From the Omnia catalogue

Argaam reported on 1 November 2026 that bank retail residential lending in September came to SAR5.53 billion. Contract counts between banks and individuals that month stood near 9,680, per the same report. It put the typical new residential mortgage size at SAR 571,000 for September, a 21% drop from a year earlier.

Villa loans were the bulk of bank product flow in the month: SAR 3.8 billion, equal to 69% of the bank total Argaam cited. Apartment lending followed at SAR 1.49 billion. Land finance was listed near SAR 241 million. Argaam also said finance-company residential mortgages to individuals fell 29% year-on-year, to about SAR 147 million in September. No full-year sum or city split was given.

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Our take

Omnia Desk

Weaker loan tickets cool financed demand; cash and Wafi still set the pace.

September’s bank tape is a demand read, not a freehold rule change. Fewer and smaller new residential mortgages mean less leveraged buying power in the open market, which can slow how quickly finished stock clears when buyers need a bank. It does not rewrite who may own under the non-Saudi framework in our foreign-buyer ownership briefing, and it leaves mapped zones and the transfer-cost stack untouched.

For anyone weighing a purchase, the practical check is funding path, not headline volume alone. Off-plan stock sold under Wafi with escrow still moves on stage payments rather than a single large drawdown, which is why schemes such as Makanah by Al Majdiah sit outside the pure mortgage-volume story. Completed bands starting near the lower end of our finished list remain more exposed if banks keep average tickets near SAR 571,000. Confirm lender appetite and LTV before you reserve; the ownership path in our 2026 off-plan guide is unchanged.

  1. 1Argaam · 1 November 2026‎Retail residential mortgages fall to SAR5.53B in Sept.(opens in a new tab)

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