The debate continues in the real estate market over supply and demand dynamics heading into 2026, split between major developers who have so far been able to sustain strong sales and protect their margins and a secondary market where property owners are finding it difficult to exit.

An interesting discussion unfolded recently at the American Chamber of Commerce’s annual real estate conference around the concept of a “correction” currently taking place in the market. The session brought together SODIC Managing Director Ayman Amer, Orascom Development’s O West, Makadi Heights, and Byoum CEO Hazem Helal, and Misr Italia co-CEO Ahmed Fathy. Abu Soma Touristic Development Company CEO Ibrahim El Messiri moderated the panel.

“We’ve been talking about a crisis in the real estate market for years, but it’s not a crisis, it’s a cycle,” Amer said. We go up, the cycle adjusts, then we make more moves. Before 2006, prices were very low in the Egyptian market, then started peaking from 2006 until today, and never stopped, he added.

But here is the catch: “it’s not anymore a two to three-year [cycle], it’s five to seven,” Amer argued. Liquidity still exists, but the holding period has lengthened. And a five-to-seven-year window means that you’re going to put your money in the right property, he added. Large pools of capital, meanwhile, have limited places to go. Precious metals cannot realistically absorb EGP 10 bn tickets, Ayman said, leaving real estate as one of the few assets capable of taking capital at scale.

“What is happening in the market is a filtration, a correction,” Helal said. 2025 was a correction, and starting in 2026, growth will move in a different way, he added.

Integrated development will be a key factor in that filtration, Helal argued. Livability is partly residential — “If I’m going to live in a place, I need medical services, education services, places to play sports, and my shopping needs,” he explained.

Prices did go a little bit above affordability, especially for people living in Egypt whose income is in EGP and where price increases were higher, Helal admitted.

Meanwhile, the real estate sector attracts the highest amount of foreign currency coming from Egyptians working abroad, which jumped 42.5% y-o-y to USD 37.5 bn in 11M 2025, far outstripping revenues from the Suez Canal or even tourism, Helal said. The growth seen in the industry today is partly driven by the percentage of sales coming from Egyptians working abroad, he noted.

The correction will not happen in prices — instead, some companies will not be there, and mergers will happen because of that, Fathy expects. The market was not in this position 20 years ago, but today players across residential, commercial, administrative, and other mixed usages are operating in a far more competitive environment, Fathy added.

“Correction also means having the right product in terms of space, functionality, payment plans, and definitely price,” Fathy noted. At the end of the day, it’s a complicated equation, and you have to get so many variables right to succeed. “There is strong affordability for ultra-luxury products if you give people the right product. 70% of Sodic sales are ultra-luxury products,” Amer added. These buyers are very picky, their benchmarks are extremely high, and they travel everywhere in the world, so you have to deliver exactly what they are looking for.

“When we asked Gen Z and young buyers directly, ‘Do you want to live in a very small apartment?’ The answer was no,” Amer noted at the AmCham event. Not more rooms — fewer rooms, but spacious rooms and generous areas. They don’t like living in London-style apartments. Our culture is different: We are a warm country with warm people. You have to address the right thing, he added.

“On behalf of all developers, I want to say that the recent rumors that prices could fall by 25-30% will not happen. We cannot do it, it is mathematically impossible,” Helal said.

Land prices are not falling, construction costs are not falling, financing remains expensive, salaries do not decline, and marketing and brokerage costs persist. Without cost compression, headline prices cannot collapse.

Margins, in fact, have already been thin. Projects sold between 2018 and early 2022 often generated little to no income, Helal said, noting that developers who achieved single-digit margins were “very lucky.” The solution is not cheaper square meters but smarter design. Large villas and inefficient layouts no longer work — the focus must be on making the total value proposition attractive and affordable without cutting meter prices.

Affordability concerns, meanwhile, look different when viewed in USD. Pricing real estate in EGP creates a distorted narrative, Amer said, arguing that Egypt’s top-tier assets average around USD 1k per sqm. Comparable assets in the GCC start at USD 6–7k, while premium European markets reach USD 10k. By those benchmarks, Egypt remains underpriced, not expensive.

But foreign participation remains minimal. Only about 3% of total real estate sales go to foreigners out of an estimated USD 34 bn market, Amer said, compared with roughly 15% in countries like Portugal. The problem is not product quality but marketing reach. Egypt does not market itself aggressively abroad, and developers often act in isolation rather than pushing destination-level narratives, Amer explained.

Hospitality-linked real estate is emerging as the most natural export channel. Demand is already strong in Cairo, Sahel, and the Red Sea, Fathy said, with rising interest from Gulf buyers and expats. Sahel, in particular, is increasingly compared internationally rather than locally. Development pipelines are expanding accordingly, including around 16 hotels planned over the next four to five years, alongside branded and serviced residences designed to make ownership frictionless for foreign buyers.

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