Egypt’s Real Estate Market to Recover In 2022

Egypt’s real estate developers expect that the local market would recover in 2022, and said that the next year will witness a strong return in demand for property, coinciding with economic recovery from the repercussions of COVID-19. Magued Sherif C0-Chair of AmCham and managing director of SODIC said, “Although challenges that Egypt’s real estate sector faces, it is expected to record a boom in the coming period especially with the start of real estate companies to meet needs of the market in addition to diversifying their products.” Similarly, Hazem Helal, Commercial Director of DMG, said that despite challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Egypt’s real estate sector has grown by 8% since the beginning of the year, and hotel occupancies have grown by 46%. Helal added that flight traffic of expatriates to Egypt grew by 150%, and the average offered real estate unit increased by 10%. He further stressed the need to reconsider some of the legislation set by the government for the local real estate sector, to motivate more developers to enter the market, noting that the property sector is one of the most promising sectors during the next decade. Ashraf Ezz El-Din, Managing Director of Al-Futtaim Group Real Estate, said that the real estate market is witnessing many challenges, foremost of which is legislative stability, explaining that the market needs the stability of laws and legislation regulating the real estate companies’ businesses in order to stabilize the market. Hisham Mousa, CEO of Redcon for Offices and Commercial Centers, said that the Covid-19 pandemic did not change much on home designs, especially the conditions imposed by the pandemic for remote work. Mousa added that companies are taking into account that housing units are more flexible and places for ventilation and suitable for long working hours. He called for the necessity of clear real estate legislation and not to make amendments on them to ensure that it attracts the largest number of real estate investors to the market. With regard to the extent of the impact of consumers’ increased reliance on e-commerce on, Ezz El-Din said that online shopping in Egypt, despite its recovery during the COVID-19 period, has so far not affected the movement of building malls, pointed out that number of visitors to malls affiliated to Al-Futtaim in Egypt reached 109,000 visitors last Black Friday.