Homegrown demand tops in 2012

Property transactions registered with the Lebanese government in 2012 reached a value of $9.2 billion representing a 3.8 percent annual increase, according to official statistics cited by Bank Audi’s Lebanon Weekly Monitor in January. The 2012 rise in property transaction values was juxtaposed with a 9.9 percent annual decline in the number of property transactions when compared with 2011. One year earlier, from 2011 to 2012, numbers and values of property transactions had both been in decline, by 11 percent and 6.7 percent respectively. Property sales to non-Lebanese in 2012 showed the lowest number of transactions since 2006, according to the data shown by the Lebanon Weekly Monitor. With property demand coming mainly from Lebanese citizens, Arab buyers were described in the report as “still somewhat hesitant” to purchase properties in the Lebanese market, which Bank Audi correlated with the travel advisories that some Gulf Cooperation Council countries issued last