Having been in KSA for so long and with such deep roots and ties, I would love to have a home here. For years, people who live here have expressed the desire to invest in KSA. To buy properties and do things here.
Now, the offers are there. Companies offering homes on lease. Foreigners can buy property in KSA now. Yippy!
I too, am interested in owning not just a home – but hopefully homes, buildings, lands here. I would like to build things. I would like to do a lot. Let us start with an apartment though. My vision is that I will buy a beautiful apartment in Riyadh and fix it up ANY way I like. I will put in a jacuzzi , decorate it beautifully and make it the most comfortable house in the world. I will then buy another apartment and gift it to my son, and another for my wife and…
HEY!!!! WAAAIT!!!!
Are you NUTS? Shouts my mind!
Buy all this and then what? What the HECK is your status in KSA? You are JUST an IQAMA number. You are talking about investing close to a Million Riyals here. Against what?
So here rises the BIG QUESTION that NO builder, no company, NOBODY has been able to answer for me. What WILL be my status when I spend so much in KSA? When I own property? I don’t want it on lease, I will pay cash. I want it on my own name. I want to keep it all my life. I want my children to inherit it. I want their children to inherit it. I have a 90 year plus plan here. What do you have to offer me?
Nothing. ” It is your investment” they say, ” You can sell it when you get EXIT only on your passport”.. WHAT????
I see a site everyday. It is www.expatriates.com . And, I see the Vehicles for sale section. In it, there are many adverts of people selling brand new cars they purchased on lease. They spent. They are almost begging for someone to take the lease or buy the car off them because they have now achieved this: EXIT ONLY. So, many vultures fly in. They say: You have no choice now, sell it to me on MY terms OR BYE BYE!.. pathetic !..
Why would it be ANY different for a house? Even if I bought it on CASH payment, what guarantees that I can live there for as long as I want? I have a 1 or 2 year renewable iqama. The renewal is totally up to my ” Sponsor”.. What if the guy blows a fuse and wants everyone under his sponsorship to GO. Not much anyone can do about that now can they?
Why should I not spend this money in Bahrain? Or Anywhere else? What convinces me to spend it in KSA? Nothing.
No Sir, I am not interested in buying anything I cannot just throw in the garbage and walk away in KSA. In fact, I would like to have a rented car, just as I have a rented house and consider it a good long vacation as long as business is good and take all the big money to my country. Why should I not do that? Any good reason? NO. Not yet at least.
If I buy a house here, I OWN it. If I own property here, I am a PERMANENT resident. I do not need to be sponsored by anyone. I should have an ID which says I am a permanent resident with this many right. The right to do business, own and live as long as I wish. I deserve this because I am GIVING you MY money. Respect me for it, or else I will take it elsewhere.
To all of you fine expatriates who bought properties here… you have made a MISTAKE. Reverse it before you cry!
This concept of allowing foreigners to buy property here without fixing RESIDENT STATUS Systems is , sorry.. ridiculous!
Real Talk Blog : ali shah 
Wow, i had no idea it is so complicated. I always thought if you buy something it’s yours, but maybe they’re just affraid of being overwelmed by Americans, considering that most of the money they earn from oil goes to America. Maybe they’re affraid that Americans will just buy most of their land, we all know that they have the means to do it. Being surrounded by Israel who’s occupied most of Palestina and occupied Iraq, I think they’re doing a smart thing here. Their survival could be at stake here … but i don’t know, what do you think?
Sorry but i am new to KSA. So from your post, you said that foreigners can buy property in Riyadh, but once they are asked to leave, they can no longer own the house? is that the case? How does it work?