RICS Cyprus Property Index ready for launch as a transparent tool

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) announced that the RICS Cyprus Property Index is in its final stages of completion and is expected to be launched by the end of the month.
The project is in the phase of selecting the property portfolio on which it will be based, with experts and academics in the process of perfecting the methodology. The Index will cover apartments, homes, offices, commercial and industrial properties and has been commissioned to the University of Reading and will be published in cooperation with the Association of Quantity Surveyors and Construction Economists (SEEOKK).
“The transparency that the Cyprus Property Index can offer, is a shield for the avoidance of economic crises like the one the world is currently facing,” said SEEOKK president Leda Philippidou.
“The Cyprus real estate sector cannot bounce back unless the basic parameters, upon which it functions, remain unsatisfactory,” added RICS Cyprus executive board member Pavlos Loizou MRICS, of Antonis Loizou & Associates. He added that the question of trust in the real estate sector must be the primary concern to all those involved. “Of course, trust without strict rules and transparency cannot exist. The creation of the RICS Cyprus Property Index will provide the necessary transparency that the market needs, so that buyers and investors can regain their trust.”
With reference to practices that are applied abroad, Loizou explained that “there are a plethora of property indexes for real estate that use different methodologies, and target specific types of real estate. Investors and funding organisations select an index, which is always based, however, on clear parameters.”
The United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) informed RICS Cyprus that there is no common index that banks and cooperatives use. They use their own index, for example, Barclays, Halifax etc. while other organisations use either the Investment Property Databank (IPD – based on re-evaluations of specific real estate and is similar to the pipeline for Cyprus) or on indices produced by consulting companies (also similar to the one proposed by RICS Cyprus).