Real estate in Lebanese GDP is now the subject of a more detailed method. The Central Statistical Office (CAS) distinguishes rented dwellings from those occupied by their owners and replaces the former assumption of a fixed annual increase in the park. This improvement accompanies the 2024 accounts and the revision of the 2020–2023 series. It concerns services produced by real estate, not the value of all goods put on sale.
The distinction counts in a country where the prices displayed of apartments occupy a major place in the economic debate. An increase in the price of an existing dwelling can enrich its owner on paper. It does not mean that the country has produced an additional apartment. National accounts seek to measure annual output, not to add assets.
Real estate in GDP: three different activities
The CAS methodological note distinguishes three subsets. The first concerns housing services provided by real estate agents. The second covers owner-occupiers, considered to provide housing service to their own household. The third includes other real estate services, including business rentals.
Owners do not necessarily pay rent to a third party. However, the national accounts do assign them a housing service, generally referred to as imputed rent. This agreement compares savings where the proportion of owners and tenants differs. Without it, measured production would depend artificially on the occupancy status of housing.
The imputed rent is neither an invoice payable nor a monetary income received from an account. It measures a service actually consumed. Confounding it with a tax levy or a household debt would give the concept a meaning that it does not have.
The end of the flat rate increase of 0.5%
The old method estimated the annual change in volume of housing services assuming a fixed increase of 0.5% of the park each year. It did not separate the rental and owner-occupied components. This simple assumption provided a regular trajectory, without reflecting the diversity of occupation situations.
The improved methodology uses data observed in household surveys for 2009–2010, 2012 and 2018. It distinguishes between dwellings occupied by their owners and those rented. In establishing annual estimates between survey years, the CAS reports using an interpolation based on building permits issued each year.
Permits are a statistical tool for crossing between observations. They shall not be considered as a count of dwellings completed and occupied during the same year. The note does not provide a recent comprehensive survey of all housing units. It describes an improvement in estimates based on available information.
| Item | Old method | Improved methodology |
|---|---|---|
| Volume of housing services | Supposedly growing by 0.5% per year | Survey data and interpolation with permits |
| Status of occupation | No distinction between rental and occupying property | Separate series for both components |
| Other real estate services | VAT data adjusted by property maintenance prices | VAT data and composite deflator better adapted |
Prices adapted to measured services
For housing services, volume series are converted into current values with the corresponding components of the consumer price index. The CAS therefore uses separate indices for actual rents and owner-occupant services.
For other real estate activities, VAT turnover data remain the basis of the current value estimate. The change concerns the deflator, i.e. the index used to separate price and activity trends. The old scheme used the real estate maintenance price index.
The new formula combines indices closer to the services concerned. The note includes architecture, engineering, advertising and administrative support services. It does not publish the detailed weightings of this basket in this short document. It is therefore not possible to recalculate the result in full from this note alone.
In 2024, value increases and volume decreases
In the revised accounts, real estate value added reached 153,904 billion daily pounds in 2024, compared with 117,241 billion in 2023. The nominal increase is 31.3%. At 2023 prices, however, the figure of 2024 was only 109,272 billion. Activity thus decreased by 6.8% in volume.
The deflator increases by about 40.8%. This combination explains why a rising current value can accompany a declining real activity. It does not measure a 40.8% increase in the selling price of all apartments. The perimeter covers real estate services registered in the branch.
Construction appears elsewhere in the accounts, in a separate branch. It has almost stable volume activity in 2024. Buying an existing building, building a building and providing a housing service are therefore different economic realities. A rigorous analysis must preserve these distinctions.
What the revision does not yet allow to isolate
The CAS reports that the 2020–2023 revision combines new institutional data with methodological improvements. The property note explains one of these improvements, but does not provide a table comparing each old estimate with the new one. It does not allow the entire revision of GDP to be attributed to real estate.
The accounts measure an aggregate national activity. They do not give the price of a specific apartment, the current number of vacant dwellings, or the expected return on an investment. To monitor the quality of this measure, the next benchmarks will be updating the park surveys and publishing more detailed information on annual adjustments.
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