Samah Yasin Okaz/Saudi Gazette MADINAH — The prices of real estate in Madinah have soared beyond the reach of potential tenants, especially young men planning to get married. Families have been greatly affected and are asking the concerned authorities to step and control the spiraling prices. Hussain Abdulaziz, a cashier, expressed deep exasperation over the sudden hike in the rent levels of apartments. He recalled that before his marriage, he wanted to rent an apartment only to discover that they were all small in size and expensive. He said: “When I was desperate to find a suitable apartment with a reasonable rent, my father built me a three-room apartment on the roof of his building. “I am now living with my wife in the annex my father has built for me until I find a suitable apartment to move into.” Abdulmoneim Al-Ahmdi, a security guard, said his landlord raised the annual rent of his apartment, consisting of three small rooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen, from SR14,000 to SR18,000. He said: “I had to move out and look for accommodation elsewhere. “I only found old apartments in buildings on the verge of collapse. “Finally I was forced to live in a far-off district with no asphalted roads or civic services just because the rent of the apartment was SR14,000.” Al-Ahmadi was happy that his new apartment is spacious but unhappy because it was far away from his workplace and his family. A female teacher, who preferred to remain anonymous, said she wanted to buy a private house but was deterred by the soaring prices that reached more than SR400,000 in remote areas with no access to civic services. “The prices of small apartments available for sale exceeded SR600,000,” she said. She criticized the quality of houses and villas, which she said were built on weak foundations, and said many of her friends discovered the villas that they had bought less than a month ago were starting to show cracks. Umm Ahmad, a realtor, said real estate prices have doubled in the past few years. "The high prices of real estate units along the Second Ring Road and the Central Area around the Prophet's Mosque can be justified by their favorable locations but how can we justify the high rates in areas that are far from the downtown and Haram areas?" she said. Umm Ahmad said she regretted selling a number of her villas for around SR700,000 each because two years later the prices of equivalent properties jumped to more than SR1.2 million. She said rent prices have also gone up due to the high prices of construction materials. “This caused landlords and realtors to increase their rent prices,” she said. Head of the real estate committee at the Madinah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ghazi Qutub, said the hikes in prices covered all areas and residential plots in Madinah. “The price of a square meter in the Central Area has reached SR270,000, while prices of land in the holy city have increased by more than 5 percent,” he said.
