Egypt’s housing market is showing signs of improvement

Egypt’s housing market is now gradually improving, with the nationwide inflation-adjusted real estate index rising by a modest 3.37% during 2022, following year-on-year declines of 2.21% in 2021, 14.38% in 2020, 2.28% in 2019, 19.24% in 2018 and 11.49% in 2017. Quarter-on-quarter, real house prices increased strongly by 13.92% in Q4 2022.

Property restrictions lifted

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi recently removed the last restrictions on foreign ownership of land and property in Egypt, in an effort to buoy the housing market. He also allowed the government, the biggest landowner in Egypt, to use its land for public-private partnership schemes. These improvements, together with the fundamentally strong local demand, is expected to boost the housing market in the coming years.

Rents, rental yields: moderate to good rental yields in Cairo at 6.71% 

Egypt has successfully weathered the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its real GDP rising by 3.5% in 2020 and by another 3.3% in 2021. In fact, Egypt is the only nation in the MENA that avoided a negative GDP growth during the onset of the pandemic. The economy expanded by a healthy 5%, on average, in the past seven years, as various economic reforms have successfully buoy business investment and private consumption in the country. 

After growing by an estimated 6.6% in 2022, the Egyptian economy is projected to grow by another 4% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).