Real estate activity rebounded during the sixth month of 2021 with the number of sale transactions rising by 24.56% month-on-month to 9,260 and the value of transactions increasing by 40.43% to $1.38 billion. Consequently, the average value per transaction soared by 12.74% month-on-month to $149,207, from $132,345 a month earlier. On a cumulative basis, the number of real estate transactions rose by 44.30% y-o-y to 39,274 transactions in the first half of 2021, with the value of transactions concurrently increasing by 9.57% to $5.91 billion as some depositors continued to flock into the real estate sector to withdraw all or part of their blocked dollar savings at banks. It is worth noting that foreigners’ share of sale transactions fell to 1.48% by June 2021, down from 1.53% at end of 2020.

From a geographical standpoint, the average value per real estate transaction in the Beirut region fell by 23.68% to $529,496 by June 2021, down from $693,797 at year-end 2020 with that in the Metn and Kesserwan regions concurrently declining by 8.84% and 7.91% to $235,005 and $161,554 respectively. On the other hand, the average value per transaction in Baabda region came in 1.99% higher at $159,113.