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8 Jul 2010
Foreign interest in the Cyprus property market is showing signs of a slow recovery following last year’s disastrous performance, with sales during the first half of 2010 up 9.6% on last year.
A TOTAL of 231 property sale contracts in favour of foreign buyers were deposited at Land Registries throughout Cyprus in June 2010, compared to 201 in June 2009 according to figures released today by the Cyprus Department of Lands and Surveys; an increase of approximately 18.5% compared to last year.
So far this year, sales in Nicosia are up by 95% followed by Limassol and Famagusta, where sales have increased 4.8% and 4.6% respectively. However, sales in Larnaca have fallen by 3.5% and in Paphos by 0.7% compared to last year.
During the first six months of this year, 231 contracts in favour of foreign buyers were deposited; up 9.6% on last year.
Source: Department of Lands and Surveys
Although the latest figures show a slight improvement, property sales to foreigners are still down by nearly 76% compared to 2008 and by almost 84% compared to the peak year of 2007 – and there are still literally thousands of empty properties littering the once popular investment hot-spots.
Unfortunately the statistics produced by the Department of Lands and Surveys do not provide a breakdown of the number of new and the number of re-sale properties being sold.
One industry pundit suspects that around 20% to 30% of the properties being sold at the present time are re-sales, arguing that these offer the best deals. Although there is no hard evidence to back his suspicion, many British buyers are now refusing to buy properties that do not have Title Deeds due to the potential level of risk involved, preferring instead to go for the much safer option of buying resale properties complete with their Title Deeds.
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