The surface area of construction permits in Lebanon, which reflects the level of future supply in the real estate sector, fell to 140,517 sqm during the month of January 2020, down from 309,036 sqm in December. On an annual basis, the surface area of construction permits came in 63.62% lower than the 386,288 sqm level reported in January of last year.

As far as the geographical distribution of construction permits is concerned, the Mount Lebanon region continued to control the lion’s share of the total surface area of issued permits (63,107 sqm <44.91%>), followed by the South (38,770 sqm <27.59%>), Nabatieh (20,961 sqm <14.92%>), Bekaa (9,216 sqm <6.56%), and Beirut (7,436 sqm <5.29%>) regions. It is worth noting that figures for the North governorate are underestimated since they exclude permits issued by the North Order of Engineers.

The Mount Lebanon governorate enjoyed the highest exploitation coefficient, which stood at 289 sqm per construction permit in January 2020, followed by Nabatieh (272 sqm/transaction), Beirut (266 sqm/transaction), South (264 sqm/transaction), the Bekaa (256 sqm/transaction), and North (147 sqm/transaction) governorates.