.
By Antonis Loizou F.R.I.C.S. – Antonis Loizou & Associates Ltd – Property Valuers, Property Consultants and Estate Agents
The Department of Lands and Surveys receives a lot of information regarding sales and other matters related to real estate. Since the publication of the basic statistics a few years ago, no attempt has been made to expand the information available, with the only information given out being the number of transactions per district and if they were by local buyers or foreign. Useful as it may be, such a statistic could be misleading in many respects.
Such information could be utilised for the benefit of the building industry which will provide in addition a marketing guidance for developers and others (including the Government). This is very important since misleading information can lead to wrong decision in business. Since the data is there and readily available, I would suggest that the thus far statistics provided should be expanded to include:
• Number of sales per district;
• Number of sales per town/parish;
• Nature of property sold (e.g. field, flat, shop, office);
• Value of the property sold since as it is recorded at present, a hotel sale is classed as one sale and a studio sale is also classed as one sale;
• The value of sale could also be classed by foreign (and by nationality) and local buyers. This is most important since the industry will learn where and at what level demand comes from. This sort of data will also help financiers to study more carefully finance applications based on actual demand, as opposed to the speculative expectations by all sorts of businesses or people.
Living in our own small world it seems that we do not learn from our mistakes of the past. And now that the market is showing some signs of recovery, there is a surge for new development projects and which reflects a rather dangerous competition between developers “who will build the highest and most impressive building”. This real estate improvement is not island-wide however, but very much localised and restricted to certain areas and primarily beach locations. The visas/passports for investments scheme is all the best, but the warning signs from the EU (including the proposal to harmonise the tax system in the EU which will be all the worst for Cyprus) are there. So, do not rush to jump on the golden train of wealth since it can be dangerous especially if a project is developed/disposed after the next 2-3 years at most and not later. We have also to keep an eye on the financiers whose investors are more of a short term nature, who might lead them to take decisions for their investors’ benefits (why not?) and not for the benefit of the economy as a whole.
For these reasons we need to use all the available data that we have in order to protect the business of real estate from the known and unknown reasons that affect our economy. It is a great shame having all this information in hand and not using it. If money is the problem I suggest that the Lands Office sets up a site which will accept contributors to finance the project and the information is sold (as nowadays is done with the sale of other data) to businesses.
I have written on the subject to the Ministry of Interior and await some sort of answer, whereas the various professional associations, business associations and others are nowhere to be seen in this effort. What a shame!
