Property sales spike 36%

Despite the energy crunch and cost of living crisis, the Cyprus real estate market is witnessing rapid growth amid economic uncertainty.

For the first ten months to October 2022, property sales were the best since 2008, according to Land Registry sale documents.

According to Stockwatch, the sales documents filed in the Land Registry from January to October reached 10781 from 7914 in the same period last year, marking an increase of 36.2%.

This is the best ten-month period since 2008 when sales reached 13,261.

The managing director of WiRE FS, Pavlos Loizou, told Stockwatch that Nicosia was the slowest market, registering a sound transaction volume.

At the same time, large increases were registered in Limassol, Paphos and Larnaca (mainly due to foreign buyers).

He argues that the distribution of interest has changed compared to 2019 and 2021 due to an increase in foreign buyers for properties in coastal cities.

Compared to the first ten months of 2019, real estate sales show a 26.1% rise.

The biggest spike was the 67.7% registered in Paphos, with sales documents amounting to 2297, from 1370 last year.

Larnaca followed, where property sales increased by 54.7%, reaching 1976 from 1277 in 2021.

Property sales in Limassol also enjoyed a 46.7% annual improvement, while Famagusta (2.7%) and Nicosia (2.2%) had relatively small increases in sales.

In October alone, Cyprus real estate sale documents filed stood at 1171 from 911 in the same month last year, registering an increase of 29%.

It was slightly higher than September’s increase of 27%.

According to the data, in 2021, the sales documents filed reached 10347 units from 7968 in COVID-ravaged 2020, recording an annual increase of 29.9%.

Since 2019, Larnaca has seen the highest 10-month volume increase in sales (53.9%), followed by Nicosia (40.6%).