imported 2024-03-17 17:43:08
“The question is whether the residential prices are affordable. Currently with the prices as they are, there is a huge difference between property prices and people’s income… Over the last 3 or 4 years, the pricing acceleration was quite aggressive so I do not think we shall see much higher prices,” says Majed Al Hogail, Managing Director of Rafal Real Estate Development Co.
“Rafal Real Estate began nearly six years ago. However, the shareholders of the company have more than 60 years’ experience in terms of business conduct in Saudi Arabia. The differential we have is that we are community innovators and not homebuilders,” says Majed Al Hogail, Managing Director of Rafal Real Estate Development Co.
“As in any emerging market, regulations are not black and white. Here in Saudi Arabia, we have regulations but the interpretation and the implementation of these regulations represent quite a challenge for doing business here,” says Majed Al Hogail, Managing Director of Rafal Real Estate Development Co.
“The land is too expensive. Land should be a maximum of 30% of the unit cost but in Saudi it is nearing 50%. Land is available but it’s too expensive,” says Mohammad Al Saja, Chairman of Mizat Development Company.
“In the real estate market in Saudi in the last three to four years, the prices doubled or tripled. As you know, the population growth in the country is becoming very high. This is one of the reasons that suddenly the government realized there is high demand for land, or in other words, a high housing demand,” explains Mohammad Al Saja, Chairman of Mizat Development Company.
“The project we are involved in consists of around 100 residential units – villas. It starts from 350 up to 600 square meters of land. It was designed carefully, in a way that would fulfill a mid to upper class Saudi family’s requirements,” explains Mohammad Al Saja, Chairman of Mizat Development Company.
“The capital markets started very early in Saudi, maybe in the 60’s or even earlier than that. It was very simple, very preliminary, there were no complications at all, and there were no rules or regulations,” explains Abdullah Saud Al-Rashoud, CEO of Blominvest Saudi Arabia.
Sultan Abdulaziz Al-Deghaither, Sr. Director of Network Engineering at Zain
Yes, it is the newest network. We are serving our customers with the latest technology provided by our partners. We are working with the biggest telecom service providers across the world, including Huawei, Nokia, Siemens and ZT. In addition, our fibre network is provided by Alcatel-Lucent, who have a very strong track record in that area.
Abdulmajid Mohammed Alrashoudi, Chief Customer Care Officer at Zain
Mainly, Saudi customers want good treatment, as do people anywhere in the world, and they also want a clear tariff plan. They want their needs to be attended very quickly. We are now trying to reduce our 36 hour resolution timeframe to almost 24 hours. Any kind of operation has issues from time to time obviously, we try to minimise them and to fast-track the solutions.
The Saudi insurance market is still very young; it has only been regulated for about 10 to 15 years. This means it is hard to compare this market with mature markets. It is hard to find another market that has the same regulations, sophistication and development as this one.
