The price of living where the jobs are

QASIM AL MAASHANI
More than half of Omanis insured in the private sector were in basic-wage bands below RO 500 a month in 2025. The National Centre for Statistics and Information counted 207,656 workers in bands from RO 325 to less than RO 500, or 55.4 per cent of the 374,903 covered by its table.
These are basic wages, not total earnings, and some households have more than one earner. Even with those distinctions, the figures raise a question for Oman’s expanding housing programme: what can working households afford, and where?
That question deserves attention after Urban October, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning’s annual programme of exhibitions and conferences, held in Muscat from October 5 to 8.
The Oman News Agency reported 20 development, partnership and tender-award agreements at the opening, involving projects valued at more than RO 1 billion. Such agreements can represent real opportunities, but their stated value is not the same as financing secured, money spent or homes ready for occupation.
Progress should also be recognised where it can be measured. On September 14, Nama Electricity Distribution announced the operation of three substations at Sultan Haitham City with a combined capacity of 160 megavolt-amperes, enabling electricity supply to key facilities and projects. This is infrastructure put into service, not simply a proposed investment. The next measure is whether new and existing communities become places where families can afford to live.
Rent offers a useful, if incomplete, test. An OpenSooq advertisement dated August 30, 2026, offered an unfurnished one-bedroom flat of 72 square metres in Al Khoud for RO 180 a month. It is one asking price, not a signed lease or a representative rental average, and such a flat would not suit every household. For a worker whose total monthly income was RO 450, that rent would absorb 40 per cent, leaving RO 270 for everything else.
The financing comparison reveals a barrier beyond the monthly payment. Under Oman Housing Bank’s Iskan programme, a qualified applicant earning RO 450 a month falls within the 3 per cent subsidised rate band. A hypothetical RO 40,000 loan over 25 years would require about RO 190 a month on a standard reducing-balance calculation, leaving RO 260 from that assumed income.
That is not evidence that buying is cheaper than the advertised RO 180 rent: the properties differ, and the loan example excludes fees and ownership costs. Access also depends on waiting-list priority, programme eligibility, approval from a participating bank and funds to cover any gap between the purchase price and the approved loan. For some households, the obstacle comes before the first instalment.
The Central Bank of Oman’s responsible-lending guidance specifies an overall debt-service ceiling of 60 per cent of net monthly salary for housing borrowing by current employees, counting other loans and credit obligations. This is a maximum for total repayments, not an affordability target for the mortgage. In the two separate RO 450 illustrations, RO 260 remains after the hypothetical loan instalment and RO 270 after the advertised rent, before essential expenses. A second earner could change either calculation, but the need to test housing costs against household resources remains.
Government support is substantial. The 2026 budget allocates RO 75 million for housing-loan interest subsidies and RO 614 million for social protection. Published conditions for direct housing assistance set a salary ceiling of RO 300, while social housing loans and subsidised bank financing follow different rules. A worker earning above RO 300 is not necessarily excluded from all support. The question is whether employment and available assistance together are sufficient to secure suitable housing near work.
The housing ministry says more than 189,000 families benefited from housing options between 2020 and 2025, with residential land accounting for 74.4 per cent of the options taken up. That represents considerable activity, but an allocated plot is not a completed home. A study published in the academic journal Cities in 2024 found that just 3,195 of 17,412 residential plots allocated in Muscat during the historical period it examined had been built on. The researchers identified financial capacity, housing need, location and neighbourhood conditions as factors in construction decisions. Their findings do not describe a current nationwide vacancy rate.
Location is part of the financial calculation. A worker may own land in a home wilayat but rent near employment in Muscat or another urban centre. Building far from work can add travel costs or create a need to maintain two residences. Small communities need reliable access to basic services; specialised facilities may be more efficiently shared across regional centres. Housing plans must therefore be linked to jobs and transport, not treated as a separate measure of development.
Before the next Urban October, the ministry could publish one annual housing affordability and delivery account with the statistics centre and lenders. It should show housing costs as a share of household income by income group and governorate, distinguish asking rents from actual leases, and report how many homes announced in previous years have been completed and occupied. This would make real progress more visible while showing where help and investment still miss the needs of working households.
Oman is demonstrating that it can build. The harder test is whether people on modest earnings can afford a suitable home near their work.