CYPRUS: Property market on way to recovery as deals up 9%

* Sales to foreigners up 13% in 2015, says Land Registry *

December was the best month for property sales last year, with the Land Registry Office recording a total of 513 deals, up 13% from the year-earlier figure and raising the total for 2015 to 4,952, up 9% from 2014.

At the same time, sales to foreigners also saw an impressive 39% increase in December, rising from 97 deals in 2014 to 135 for the month in 2015. This pushed the total for the year to 1,349 deals, up 13.1% from the 2014 total of 1,193 transactions. The best month was May with 157 property sales, up 2.6% from the year-earlier figure that, too, was the best month in 2014.
The district of choice for foreigners was once again Paphos with a total of 481 property sales in 2015, followed by Limassol with 394, Larnaca third with 292, while Nicosia and Famagusta Districts languished with poor interest from foreigners at 96 and 86 transaction, respectively.

Monthly property sales in Cyprus: 2014 – 2015 (change)
January 293 321 +10%
February 311 325 +5%
March 344 452 +31%
April 311 381 +23%
May 551 405 -26%
June 403 464 +15%
July 407 496 +22%
August 335 301 -10%
September 373 385 +3%
October 375 463 +23%
November 370 446 +21%
December 454 513 +13%
Total 4,527 4,952 +9%

Monthly property sales to foreigners: 2014 – 2015 (change)
January 85 86 +1.2%
February 81 123 +51.8%
March 102 41 -59.8%
April 82 97 +18.3%
May 153 157 +2.6%
June 98 131 +33.6%
July 92 146 +58.7%
August 86 60 -30.2%
September 107 124 +15.9%
October 117 111 -5.1%
November 93 138 +45.2%
December 97 135 +39.2%
Total 1,193 1,349 +13.1%