Holy Cities Makkah-Madinah Realty Index Down 7.6%

Global real estate advisory firm Alpha1Estates said on February 4th that its real estate index for Makkah and Madinah had fallen by 7.6% in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic and global lockdown

BY Realty Plus
Published - Friday, 05 Feb, 2021

Holy Cities Makkah-Madinah Realty Index Down 7.6%

Global real estate advisory firm Alpha1Estates said on February 4th that its real estate index for Makkah and Madinah had fallen by 7.6% in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic and global lockdown brought travel to the Holy Cities to a standstill. Whilst the Saudi market’s major Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) was up 3.6% in 2020, the real estate index actually fell by 3.6%, and the Ihsan al-Haramain Index, the influential index used to solely track Saudi-listed companies involved in real estate development in Makkah and Madinah, down by 7.6%, representing a 10% underperformance with the market. ‘Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, global lockdown and global travel coming to a standstill in 2020, the fundamentals of demand for real estate in the Holy Cities meant that the impact, albeit significant, was in the short and medium-term, as the fourth-quarter opening allowed the sector to make some recovery,’ said Mr. Talal Mahmood Malik al-Alawi, Chairman and CEO of Alpha1Estates. From March 2020 and for many weeks and months, over 3 billion people globally were under lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in Saud Arabia, regular access and prayers to the Prophet’s Mosque were halted for over 70 days from March to May 2020, where regular access to the Grand Mosque in Makkah was halted, whilst Hajj was performed by around 1,000 pilgrims in July and Umrah came to a halt for over 200 days from March to October 2020.