Cyprus property sales fall 16% in first 4 months of year

Property sales in Cyprus fell an annual 16 percent to 2,741 in the first four months of the year after they rose 5 percent in 2010, the Department of Lands and Surveys said.
“Demand for property suffers from a high unemployment rate and a lack of liquidity at banks, which result in higher interest rates compared with the rest of the euro area,” Charalambos Petrides, chairman of the Cyprus Association of Valuers and Property Consultants, said in a telephone interview to Bloomberg.
Property transactions will slump circa 10 percent to 15 percent this year compared with 2010, according to Petrides.

By Stelios Orphanides