(MENAFN - Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The Latest available data from the Ministry of Justice, Department of Real Estate Registration and Authentication, for January 2013, indicated a noticeable drop in real estate market liquidity compared with December 2012, a specialized economic report revealed here Saturday.
"The total value of contracts and agencies trading scored about KD 302.7 million, down by 22.8 percent from December 2012 value of about KD 392.2 million," reads the report, by Al-Shall Economic Consultants.
The report noted that January 2013 trading was distributed as follows: KD 260.6 million for contracts and about KD 42.1 million for agencies.
"Contribution value of private housing sale dropped slightly out of total sales and registered KD 161.1 million (53.2 percent) compared with KD 213.8 million (54.5 percent) in December 2012, achieving a drop by 24.7 percent and a drop in its contribution to the total," the report noted.
The data also showed that the value of investment housing sales scored about KD 94.4 million (31.2 percent) of total sales, versus 33.2 percent in December 2012 when they scored KD 130.4 million.
"This means they achieved a drop by 27.6 percent and a drop in their contribution in the total. Value of commercial activity sales scored about KD 50 million and its contribution to the total sales rose to 13.5 percent (11.4 percent in December 2012) while its absolute value dropped by 8.1 percent below its counterpart value in December 2012.
"Absolute value of warehousing activity went up by 83.8 percent vis-a-vis December 2012. Likewise, its relative contribution out of total sales rose to 2.1 percent compared to 0.9 percent in December 2012," added the report.
Al-Shall noted that the decline has negatively impacted the private and investment housing.
"If we compare January 2013 trading with that of January 2012 we note a drop in the real estate market's liquidity from KD 345.2 million in January 2012 to KD 302.7 million in January 2013, a drop by 12.3 percent.
"The decline also affected the private and investment housing by 13.6 percent and 28.7 percent respectively. Private and investment housing components captured 84.4 percent of the market liquidity in January 2013 (92.3 percent in January 2012. Comparing the last 12 months' trading (February 2012 - January 2013) with the trading in the period (February 2011 - January 2012), we notice that value of contracts and agencies between February 2012 and January 2013 scored KD 3.29 billion vis-a-vis KD 3.01 billion for the previous period achieving a rise by 9.2 percent." Moreover, the report showed that the rise also affected the private and investment housing, the commercial activity and warehousing, which rose by 13.
4 percent, 1.4 percent, 14.2 percent, and 66.1 percent respectively.
With regard to the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) performance last week, the report noted that the KSE performance was less active, where all the indices showed a decrease, and the general index showed a decrease too.
"Al-Shall Index (value weighted) closed at 446.7 points at the closing of last Thursday, showing a decrease of about 1.3 points or about 0.3 percent, and an increase of 8.5 points or about 1.9 percent compared to the end of 2012, " the report said.
