_Tomorrow’s world

The total value of real estate projects since the launch of Saudi Arabia’s National Transformation Plan in 2016 has crossed US$ 1.1 trillion.

Faisal Durrani March 14, 2023

NEOM still top

The phenomenal transformation in 2022’s fastest-growing major global economy is clearly visible across the entire urban landscape, with the Kingdom’s Giga projects are set to deliver a new urban future for Saudi Arabia.

Survey 1 has allowed us to explore the domestic appetite to invest, purchase or live in the Giga projects and, crucially, compare attitudes 12 months on as this is a theme we focussed heavily on in our 2022 Saudi Report.

First, we wanted to understand how familiar Saudis are with the Giga projects. The futuristic US$ 500 billion city of NEOM is, perhaps expectedly, the most well-known among respondents, with 59% saying they are familiar with the project, followed by Al-Ula (40%), which aims to be the world’s largest living cultural museum.

Popularity league table shake-up

Our 2022 Saudi report found that NEOM was the most attractive project for Saudi home buyers and investors, as 44% of respondents were interested in buying a property there. NEOM remains the most preferred project in 2023, with 32% of respondents interested in a property purchase.

The rest of the league table of Giga project popularity has seen a major shake-up, with Jeddah Central (19%) jumping to second place. The project is most popular amongst respondents from Jeddah (35%), compared to just 8% of those in Riyadh.

Meanwhile, Riyadh’s King Salman Park is now the third most popular Giga project among our respondents (9%).

The Red Sea Project slips to 5th place this year, compared to second place last year, but it is not necessarily a reflection of its diminished popularity, but more likely a realisation among aspirational home buyers and investors that it is primarily a second-home and/or holiday destination.

As the Red Sea Project (including Amala) has one of the highest levels of visible completion – 57% of US$ 3.2 billion worth of contracts, according to our latest estimate –there is much greater clarity on the offering, which for the most part, is centred on luxury hotels. And so buyers’ attention may be shifting to Giga projects centred on residential offerings instead.

Good news travels fast

We have also used Survey 3 to unpick how the region’s HNWI consumes information relating to the Giga projects; it’s a critical tool in understanding how to access this often hard to reach group of elite buyers and investors.

Overall, ‘official news outlets’ (36%) and ‘social media’ (27%) are cited as the most common ways to get information on Giga projects. While 11% say they are reliant on their financial advisors.

A big part of Vision 2030 has been to ‘take the Saudi story to the world’ with billboards about the latest Giga project dotted throughout cities from New York to Dubai, but this advertising seems to be least effective for those with a net worth of over US$1 million, with just 3% claiming to be influenced by such advertising.

Overall, 87% of GCC-based HNWI interested in the Giga projects claim they are likely to consider purchasing a residential property.