Real estate activity improved during the eighth month of 2021 with the number of sale transactions increasing by 24.47% month-on-month to 10,413 and the value of transactions rallying by 17.78% to $1.44 billion, as people rushed to register their properties ahead of any increase in the official exchange rate of the US Dollar against the Lebanese pound which will make registration fees more expensive. Consequently, the average value per transaction fell by 5.37% month-on-month to $138,324, from $146,173 a month earlier. On a cumulative basis, the number of real estate transactions soared by 28.87% y-o-y to 58,053 transactions in the first eight months of 2021, with the value of transactions improving by 2.23% to $8.58 billion. It is worth noting that foreigners’ share of sale transactions fell to 1.43% by August 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 23.61% to $529,982 by August 2021, down from $693,797 at year-end 2020 with that in the Metn, Kesserwan and Baabda regions concurrently declining by 16.73%, 11.92% and 13.13% to $214,661, $154,522 and $135,526 respectively.