According to the latest 2017 census, only 3.3m Egyptian households resided in rented homes, comprising a mere 14% of all households while the rest owned their dwellings, according to a report from 10Tooba for Applied Research.
The report said that rent included four forms of occupancy identified by the census: old rent, which was slightly the largest form of rent, housing 1.6m households; new rent, the second largest with 1.5m households; in-kind benefit, which was 0.6% of households; and finally, furnished rent, the least popular at only 0.1% of households.
The report noted that ownership, on the other hand, included only two forms of possession: owned/bought (through building, buying, or inheritance) with 17.8m households, representing 76% of all households, as the largest form of tenure by far; and gifted (usually from parents) at 10% of households.
“Regionally, it was surprising to see a mix of urban and desert governorates in the top 10, where renting households ranged from a high of 39% in the city-governorate of Cairo, to a low of 13% in the desert governorate of Matrouh. The top 10 included the greater Cairo region’s other two governorates, Giza and Qaliubiya, as well as Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, and the three Suez Canal cities of Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez. But it was surprising to see the tourism-oriented desert governorates of the Red Sea and South Sinai come second and third with 38% and 32% of households renting respectively,” the report read, adding, “outside of the top 10, the less urban Upper Egyptian and Delta governorates saw 10% or less of their households renting, where the bottom seven had 5% of households or less renting.”
The report pointed out that Cairo had the highest percentage of households living in an old rent space (25.8%), while North Sinai had the least (0.8%). New rent space was highest in the Red Sea governorate, with almost one-third of households there using it. Meanwhile, it was lowest in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Minya, with less than 3% of households. Even though the national average for furnished rent was less than half of 1%, almost 7% of households in South Sinai used it (most probably clustered in the resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh), as opposed to none in Sohag. In-kind use was highest in Matrouh at 4%, and lowest in Sohag at 0.2%.
For owned units, North Sinai had the highest percentage of households who owned/bought their homes (98%), while in the Red Sea it was only a little more than half of the households. Fayoum saw the highest incidence of gifted homes (16.4%), while Port Said had the least (1.5%).
For foreign guest arrivals, Egypt has seen bigger growth in Airbnb guest arrivals than anywhere in Africa in the 2017/18 season, according to data from Airbnb.
It revealed that arrivals to Egypt increased 134% year-over-year, far outpacing Reunion Island (84%), Kenya (69%), and South Africa (60%). In the city, both Hurghada and El Gouna topped the list, seeing Airbnb guest arrivals growing 220% and 215% respectively.
