Real estate deals in Oman top OMR128m in December

Muscat: The value of traded contracts in the real estate sector crossed OMR128 million by the end of December 2017 while the collected fees stood at OMR5,408,000, Abdullah bin Salim Al Mukhaini, Secretary of the Real Estate Registry at the Ministry of Housing said.
He pointed out that the total number of real estate transactions amounted to 29,765 including sale, will, inheritance, exchange, mortgage and release of mortgage transactions, besides visas.
He added that the number of sale contracts during December 2017 exceeded 3,944 contracts worth OMR63,563,000 at the level of the governorates while the collected fees from such sale contracts during December 2017 reached more than OMR2,721,000.
Al Mukhaini added that the Governorate of North Al Batinah recorded the highest number of real estate sale contracts with 818 contracts followed by the Governorate of Muscat with 581 contracts, 628 sale contracts were signed in the Governorate of South Al Batinah, 510 contracts in the Governorate of A’Dakhiliyah, 357 contracts in Governorate of North A’Sharqiyah, 354 contracts in the Governorate of South A’Sharqiyah, 281 contracts in the Governorate of A’Dhahirah, 184 contracts in the Governorate of Dhofar, 103 contracts in the Governorate of Al Buraimi, 101 contracts in the Governorate of Al Wusta and 27 contracts in the Governorate of Musandam.
Al Mukhini added that 17,334 title deeds were issued in December 2017 including 3,313 in the Governorate of Muscat, 3,274 in the Governorate of North Al Batinah, 2,818 in the Governorate of South Al Batinah, 2,612 in the Governorate of A’Dakhiliyah and 1,343 in the Governorate of North A’Sharqiyah, 1,194 in the Governorate of A’Dhahirah, 1,147 in the Governorate of South Al Sharqiyah, 889 in the Governorate of Dhofar, 376 in the Governorate of Al Buraimi, 232 in the Governorate of Al Wusta, 136 in the Governorate of Musandam, besides the GCC citizens’ title deeds. The number of new land plots registered for the first time stood at 4,777.
He explained that a total of 908 mortgage contracts worth OMR63,532,000 were signed across the Sultanate during December 2017 with fees worth more than OMR384,000. He added that the Governorate of Muscat recorded the highest rate of mortgage contracts among the Sultanate’s governorates with 276.
He said that the value of exchanged contracts stood at more than OMR1 million and the collected fees for the same amounted more than OMR21,000 through 114 exchanged contracts, the Governorate of Al Dhakilyah recorded the highest rate with 30 contracts.
As for inheritance contracts, they stood at 446, as the Governorate of North Al Batinah registered the highest percentage by 177 contracts.
Al Mhikhini concluded that the total number of title deeds issued for the GCC nationals according to the real estate possession conditions during December 2017 amounted to 88, with the Kuwaiti citizens on top by 40 followed by the UAE citizens 24 and 27 for Qataris, 5 title deeds for Bahraini citizens and Saudi citizens with 3 title deeds.
Most of the possessions of the GCC nationals were focused in the Governorates of Muscat and North Al Batinah, comprising 34 per cent and 28 per cent respectively of the total number of the title deeds.