Real estate experts in the Kingdom believe that the success of the real estate sector is related to cooperation between the city municipalities and facilitating all the procedures. Success is also tied with eliminating the long bureaucratic procedures when approving land plots. Real estate experts said the inability to find a quick solution to the many real estate bad investments has frozen the development of many plots of land around the cities and prevented urban expansion and development. The Ministry of Commerce took the initiative to present solutions to many bad real estate investments and put plots of land again in auction, as seen in the Makkah land auction. Real estate investors also called to develop new tools that help develop the real estate sector in addition to establishing real estate funds. Real estate investors believe that the real estate sector in the Kingdom could develop and become more attractive if people were investing in it. At the same time they called for establishing big real estate funds for people. Real estate investors believe that the biggest obstacle in this industry is people buying huge lands and installing basic infrastructure on it and selling it to real estate businessmen before they are sold to the public. They believe that the real estate development fund is the best financing tool to finance real estate projects. Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Mishaal, real estate specialist in Makkah, said that there are many real estate investments in need of financial and administrative vision. He proposed real estate funds on a city level that could help in expanding the housing industry and can be controlled by the private sector and supervised by the real estate development fund and the Capital Market Authority (CMA) in addition to a number of other real estate companies. Al-Mishaal said the real estate sector in the Kingdom is very active. There are many investment opportunities to establish housing for limited income people. There is also a shortage in the number of apartments available. He said there are many areas in the Kingdom that is witnessing housing and commercial development. He added: "The Kingdom has succeeded in eliminating the fear that was controlling the real estate sector. The Kingdom also succeeded in expanding its non-oil activities and benefit from its financial returns to create a sustainable economy, relying on the huge development in the financial sector and the stability of the real estate sector." He said the Kingdom restored confidence to the real estate sector and is getting ready to enter a new phase after the recent government decisions that support the real estate sector. The government is also working on solving bad real estate investments in addition to establishing a new financing system. Hamad Bin Suaidan, head of Hamad Bin Suaidan real estate group, said real estate investment helped in developing many lands and turning them into land plots with full infrastructure services. He said real estate investment also helped in reducing the cost of the pieces of land, which is the main problem in the Kingdom in addition to the rising costs of construction and buying raw materials. He said the Kingdom is top of the countries in the region in terms of attracting investment. He said Saudi Arabia launched 73 new funds in 2012, according to a report published by Zawya Company. By the end of 2012, the amount of joint funds in the Middle East and North Africa reached $60 billion that is controlled by 160 companies managing 865 funds. He added: "Most of the funds working in the region prefer countries with more stable systems like the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg. When foreign investors want to invest in the Middle East, they often encounter difficulties from local governments to own lands and companies." The CMA urged people who want to invest in authorized and licensed funds to read the terms and condition first that defined the contract relations between the manager of the fund and the investor. It also helps the investors to reach the right investment decision. The CMA stated that its conditions apply to all investment funds authorized to operate in the Kingdom, whether it is investing in the stock market or in the foreign money markets or real estate funds. The CMA forces the fund manager to issue conditions for the funds, which become the contract between the fund and investors. Investors will have to read these conditions and agree to it and sign the contract before investing. The manager of the fund should authenticate the signatures of the investors and ensure they have a copy of the contract. The CMA has obliged fund managers to alert investors if there are any fundamental changes in the terms and conditions 60 days before they are applied. Heads of funds are obliged to provide investors with financial statements when they ask, without any charges, to make sure there is transparency and to help investors to make future investment decisions. Makkah Emir Prince Khaled Al-Faisal directed a followup on the new organizational procedures before any real estate auction in Jeddah in order to organize these auctions to ensure there are no wrongdoings and to ensure buyers are not being cheated. The real estate sector in many cities around the Kingdom is booming in terms of size of investment. There are huge demands on housing units because of the growing number of population and the number of foreign expatriates in addition to the increase in income. This is demonstrated by the economic cities that the Kingdom has launched in many parts of the country. Religious tourism is also booming in the Kingdom, opening the door for many real estate investments.
