_A beautiful life: community living gains traction

Community living is thriving in the Kingdom, with the popularity of living in accommodation with shared facilities rapidly growing.

Faisal Durrani March 03, 2023

As has been the case globally, the desire for outside space, easy-to-access and/or onsite facilities and amenities has been super-charged by the COVID-19 pandemic, and our survey results show that the desire to live in such communities, whether gated or not, is stronger than ever.

Developer reputation is key

Indeed, amongst respondents in Survey 1, 70% are interested in purchasing a home in a residential community. When presented with residential community options, 57% were interested in projects developed by ROSHN. We believe the popularity of ROSHN developments can be linked to the promise of never-before-seen shared residential amenities. Looking at our results at a city level, respondents based in Riyadh named Shams Ar-Riyadh (34%), Sedra (by ROSHN) (30%) and Mohammed Bin Salman Non-profit City (16%) as their top targets. Meanwhile, in Jeddah, the most preferred communities for purchasing a home are ROSHN (52%), Shams Al-Arous (14%) and Mohammed Bin Salman Non-profit City (13%).

Overall, the most popular reason to live in a residential community, after ‘location’ (23%), is ‘security’ (21%), followed by the (expected) ‘global standard of the build’ (16%). Clearly, the reputation of the developer plays a big part in influencing decision-making and ROSHN’s recent commencement of the handover of the first units at Sedra in Riyadh will help to cement.