The surface area of construction permits in Lebanon, which reflects the level of future supply in the real estate sector, increased to 666,298 sqm during the month of June 2021, up from 350,018 sqm in May. Moreover, on a cumulative basis, the surface area of construction permits soared by 209.18% y-o-y to 3,383,963 sqm in the first half of the current year, compared to 1,094,491 sqm during the same period last year. This may be attributed to the fact that many developers have been rushing to obtain construction permits and accordingly benefit from the relatively low fees which are still priced at the official exchange rate.

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 (1,351,077 sqm <39.93%>), followed by the South (929,740 sqm <27.47%>), Nabatieh (512,562 sqm <15.15%), Bekaa (498,751 sqm <14.74%>), and Beirut (50,991 sqm <1.51%>) 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 North governorate enjoyed the highest exploitation coefficient, which stood at 771 sqm per construction permit in H1-2021, followed by the Bekaa (735 sqm/transaction), Mount Lebanon (544 sqm/transaction), Beirut (443 sqm/transaction), South (440 sqm/transaction), and Nabatieh (403 sqm/transaction) governorates.