Via Zainab Fattah in bloomberg.com: Saudi Arabia will need to build 115,000 homes each year for the next six years to fulfill demand from a young population and hit ownership targets set by the oil-rich nation’s government, according to Knight Frank LLP. The kingdom’s government wants homeownership to reach 70% by 2030 from 63.7% at the end of 2023. The Saudi government’s target along with new household formation are helping drive much of the demand in a country where 45% of citizens are below 20 years old, according to the report. The kingdom’s Sakani program, which includes social housing, has 883,562 applications from people looking to buy homes with financing help through guarantees on mortgages below 520,000 riyals ($138,448). The kingdom’s population grew in Saudi at 1.8% annually compared with a global rate of 1.1% between 2010 and 2002, according to the World Bank.
