Real estate companies listed on the Saudi stock exchange, Tadawul, earned a combined 2.87 billion riyals ($766 million) in the first half of 2026, an 18 percent drop from the same period of 2025. Fourteen of the listed firms turned a net profit over the six months; three reported losses.
A Sector Pulling in Different Directions
Cenomi Centers led the field with 588.2 million riyals, even though its own earnings fell 14.7 percent year on year. Saudi Real Estate Company ranked second at 579 million riyals after a 152.2 percent jump, and Dar Al Arkan followed with 498.97 million riyals, up 11.4 percent.
That spread is normal for the sector, according to Khalid Al-Mubayed, chief executive of Manassat Real Estate, who notes that listed developers do not share a single business model. Some depend on building and selling, some on leasing and recurring income, and others on the delivery schedules of megaprojects or on seasonal destinations. One company can post a sharp jump because it handed over projects, sold assets or widened margins, he said, while another sees profit slip even as its operations stay strong.
The Second Quarter Tells a Milder Story
Quarterly figures point to a flatter trend than the half-year headline suggests. Second-quarter profit came in at 1.455 billion riyals against 1.462 billion riyals a year earlier, a decline of just 0.49 percent. Al-Mubayed called that gap notable next to the roughly 18 percent drop recorded across the full half, and described what the market is seeing as a selective improvement in profitability rather than uniform growth.
New Rules, Delayed Effect
The sector is being reshaped, Al-Mubayed said, with new regulations raising standards of professionalism and disclosure and pushing owners to put assets to actual use and development instead of holding them idle. Over the medium term, he expects that to favour the more efficient operators, while financing costs remain a heavy constraint. The firms best placed for the coming period, in his view, are those with projects close to delivery, land banks acquired at reasonable cost, controlled debt and strong operating cash flow. The winner, he added, is not necessarily the company with the largest portfolio but the one that converts assets into sustainable cash and profit most efficiently.
Ahmed Al-Faqih, a real estate expert and valuer, takes a longer view still, arguing that quarterly and half-year results say little about where the development market is actually heading. The sweeping regulatory and legislative changes now under way, including new governance requirements for developers, will not show up in the numbers of the largest companies for roughly another 12 months, he said. Some of those governance rules have raised development costs outright, while decisions on real estate balance measures have clearly eased one of the sector’s biggest cost pressures. Profit swings at development firms, in his reading, come down to two things: which projects were delivered and sold without stumbling, and the quality of the management running the company.
This story was produced in the newsroom from the disclosed sources named above.
