The Ministry of Finance (MoF) registered 26,430 real estate transactions in the first nine months of 2024, an increase of 118 percent compared to the same period in 2023 when only 12,125 transactions were registered, according to data compiled by Byblos Bank’s « Lebanon This Week » report, and based on the latest numbers released by the MoF.

This jump is mainly attributed to the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre resuming its activities, after long periods of closure caused by repeated public sector employee strikes between January and September 2023, Lebanon This Week stated.

The value of these transactions also recorded a drastic increase from LL56,027.9 billion during the first nine months of 2023 to a staggering LL166,406.2 billion over the same period in 2024 (or an increase of 197 percent).

The economic research department at Credit Libanais also links the increase in the monetary value of real estate transactions to the gradual increase of the exchange rate used by the real estate registry « to compute the Lebanese lira value of the transactions, » rising from the Sayrafa rate of LL38,000-to-the-dollar at the end of January 2023, to LL89,500-to-the-dollar by the end of September of the same year (or adjustment of 135 percent).

In terms of regional breakdown, North Lebanon registered the most transactions in the first nine months of 2024, with 6,817 transactions or 25.8 percent of the recorded total. The Bekaa-Baalbeck Hermel region came second with 5,554 deals or 21 percent of the total, while the South recorded 18.8 percent of the transactions (4,965 deals), Beirut 10.9 percent (2,878 deals), Nabatieh 10.7 percent (2,820 deals), while Jbeil and Kesrouan recorded a slightly lower percentage of 7.9 with a total of 2,100, with the rest spread across other Lebanese regions.

The number of deals closed by foreigners stood at 2.2 percent of total transactions, up from 1.8 percent over the same period in 2023. Based on the latest available figures (which stop at May 2024), Lebanon This Week reports 43.6 percent of transactions being done by Syrian nationals in May, followed by Saudi Nationals (9 percent), U.S. citizens (6 percent), nationals from the Dominican Republic (4.6 percent) and Turkish nationals (4 percent).

The war with Israel has however not spared the real estate sector, with transactions dropping from 4,290 in August to 2,447 in September 2024, or a decrease of 43 percent.