Morocco Construction Costs: Bricks Double, Prices Soar
Morocco's real estate sector faces a widening gap between construction costs and purchasing power, as building material prices jumped 30-50% since 2019, despite a partial rebound in transactions in the second quarter of 2026.
Morocco's real estate development sector is caught between relentlessly rising construction costs and eroding household purchasing power. Prices for several building materials have jumped 30 to 50% since 2019, according to industry professionals and experts cited by Hespress. Data from Bank Al-Maghrib and the National Land Registry Agency point to a widening gap between asking prices and buyers' real purchasing capacity.
Building material prices surge
Brick prices have doubled since 2019, from 1.20 to 2.40 dirhams per unit (+100%), while rebar rose from 6.20 dirhams per kilogram to a peak of 14 dirhams before easing back to around 10 dirhams currently. Aluminum climbed 50% and tiles 20% over the same period. A ton of cement sells for roughly 1,600 dirhams in Morocco, compared with just 700 to 800 dirhams in Egypt and Turkey, according to comparisons cited by developers.
Nabil Benmahjoub, a Casablanca-based real estate developer, said: "Developers can no longer automatically pass on rising production costs to sale prices." Some villa plots in Casablanca and Rabat now exceed 10 million dirhams.
Transactions fall, then partly rebound
Real estate transactions fell sharply in the first quarter of 2026, down 40.2% quarter-on-quarter and 9.3% year-on-year, hitting residential (-38.4%), land (-45.9%) and commercial property (-40.2%) alike. The second quarter saw a partial rebound of 11% quarter-on-quarter, with a 6.3% year-on-year rise.
| City | Q1 quarterly change | Q2 quarterly change |
|---|---|---|
| Rabat | -55.4% | +61.2% |
| Marrakech | -53.3% | +18.3% |
| Casablanca | -37.8% | +4.4% |
| Tangier | -36.4% | +11.5% |
Ismail Riahi Idrissi, a real estate expert and market analyst at Banque des Affaires, says "the widening gap between asking prices and households' real purchasing power" remains the main driver of this volatility, even as residential property prices rose only 1% year-on-year.
Bank financing and government housing support
Bank Al-Maghrib held its key rate at 2.25% at its September 22 meeting, while the average real estate loan rate eased to 5.06% in the second quarter from 5.13% in the first, and the average individual housing loan rate to 4.53% from 4.66%. Outstanding real estate loans stood at about 330 billion dirhams at the end of August, up 3.9% year-on-year, of which roughly 259 billion dirhams were traditional housing loans. Developer loans grew 11.8%, compared with just 2.3% for household housing loans, reflecting persistent pressure on citizens' purchasing power — a recent Bank Al-Maghrib report had already found distressed household debt exceeding 44 billion dirhams, despite public support efforts.
Under the government's direct housing support program launched last June, more than 105,000 people benefited out of 218,000 applications, with 60% of them buying homes worth less than 300,000 dirhams. Beneficiaries were 52% under 40 years old, 40% women, and 24% Moroccans living abroad.