Oman Just Signed 8 New Neighbourhoods With 2,443 Homes. Only One Is in Muscat.

If you are a young Omani family in Nizwa, Taqah or Bidbid, your next home may not be in the capital at all. On 5 October, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning signed eight new neighbourhood deals worth RO 186.6 million, adding 2,443 homes and plots. Only one of the eight is in Muscat.

Key Takeaways

• 20 deals worth more than RO 1 billion were signed in one morning, but RO 700 million of that is a single tourism project.
• 2,013 of the 2,443 new Surooh homes and plots (82%) are outside Muscat, and 744 of them are in Ad Dakhiliyah.
• Private developers invest and build under ministry agreements, and the state also buys finished homes for low-income families.
• Saudi Arabia is still working towards 70% homeownership. Oman's challenge is different: what kind of home families end up with.

The count: 20 deals, 8 neighbourhoods, 2,443 homes

The signings took place at the opening of the Oman Home & Building Expo in Muscat. The ministry organised the expo with UN-Habitat as part of "Urban October". Times of Oman reported 20 partnership, development and tender agreements with a combined value of more than RO 1 billion.

The headline number needs a closer look. The largest single item was the Al Bandar tourism development at RO 700 million, according to Oman Observer. That is a resort story, and it continues a run of deals we tracked in Oman's tourism signing spree.

The deals that create places to live are smaller but closer to home. They include RO 186.6 million for eight Surooh neighbourhoods and RO 100 million across two agreements for 485 units in Al Thuraya City. Khazaen Economic City also signed a RO 50 million neighbourhood, but its unit count was not publicly specified.

Where the 2,443 homes are going

Wilayat	Governorate	Units	Investment (RO)
Taqah	Dhofar	580	47.0m
Bausher	Muscat	430	57.0m
Bidbid	Ad Dakhiliyah	355	20.9m
Sohar	North Al Batinah	321	4.9m
Al Rustaq	South Al Batinah	271	2.7m
Nizwa	Ad Dakhiliyah	214	28.8m
Bahla	Ad Dakhiliyah	175	13.3m
Al Buraimi	Al Buraimi	97	12.0m

Source: official agreement list as published by Times of Oman at the signing.

Do the maths and 2,013 of the 2,443 units, or 82%, are outside the capital. Ad Dakhiliyah gets 744 across Bidbid, Nizwa and Bahla. The single biggest neighbourhood is in Taqah in Dhofar, not Muscat. That pattern matters if you follow which governorates are actually getting development money.

Read the investment column carefully. According to the ministry's Director-General of Real Estate Development, Nasser al Siyabi, the total includes about 1,850 residential units and nearly 600 serviced plots, Oman Observer reported. The split for each site was not published, so the low figures for Sohar and Rustaq should not be read as cheap house prices. One more caution: the Taqah developer's chief executive gave an estimate of RO 40 million, while the official list says RO 47 million. We use the official list.

Who pays, who builds, who is responsible

Surooh is the ministry's integrated neighbourhood programme. The ministry signs development agreements and sets the plan. Private developers bring the money and build complete districts, not just houses. One existing example is the ministry's Al Sumu project page, which lists 183 villas and plots in Al Mudhabi alongside a mosque, commercial areas and a mall.

The same official page lists 18 Surooh neighbourhoods, stretching from Sur to Musandam. None of the eight new sites appear on that list, so the programme now covers at least 26 neighbourhoods.

The state is also a buyer. In 2025 the social housing programme bought 959 ready-built homes from Sultan Haitham City, Surooh projects and the local market, Oman Observer reported. So a family on the social housing list could end up living in a developer-built neighbourhood. For the bigger question of whether the state can manage this many partners, see our page on how well the government delivers its own projects.

What is missing: completion dates and sale prices for the eight neighbourhoods were not publicly specified at signing. A signed agreement is not a building site yet.

The small deals that matter more than their size

Some of the most human items were the cheapest. A tender of more than RO 12 million covers a rehabilitation complex for people with disabilities and a care home for older people in Sultan Haitham City. Two tenders worth RO 5 million will build a government school and a health centre in Kumzar, Musandam. On 8 October, a separate deal worth about RO 2 million was signed to build 46 homes for low-income families in Masirah, funded by the Al Yusr Charitable Foundation.

The Saudi comparison

Saudi Arabia's Housing Program reported a homeownership rate of 65.4% at the end of 2024 and is aiming for 70% by 2030, according to its official annual report. At the expo, Oman's housing minister, Dr Khalfan al Shueili, said more than 90% of Omanis own their homes, Oman Observer reported. The two figures are not measured the same way, so treat this as a rough comparison.

Oman's challenge is different. Residential land was the most popular choice among the 189,000 families who used the ministry's housing options since 2020, at 74.4%, according to Oman Observer's report of ministry figures. Owning a plot is not the same as living in a finished home with a school and shops nearby. Surooh is the ministry's attempt to close that gap.

Why this matters for ordinary Omanis

If you have waited years to build on a bare plot, these neighbourhoods offer a different deal: a finished home in a planned district, often in your own wilayat. If you live in Bahla, Buraimi or Taqah, new housing is coming to you rather than pulling you towards Muscat.

The questions to ask now are simple: what will these homes cost, and when will the keys be handed over? Neither answer was published this month. Keep asking until they are.