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29th March 2024
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HomeNewsCyprus new homes down fifty percent

Cyprus new homes down fifty percent

ACCORDING to figures released by the Cyprus Statistical Service, the number of building permits issued in March stood at 808 compared with the 740 issued in March 2011; an increase of 9.2%.

However, the total area of these permits stood at 112,451 square metres, a fall of 43.5% compared with March last year and their value stood at €102,790, a fall of 40.7% compared with March 2011.

In March, building permits were issued for:

  • Residential buildings – 439 permits
  • Non-residential buildings – 256 permits
  • Civil engineering projects – 52 permits
  • Division of plots of land – 54 permits
  • Road construction – 7 permits

Over the first quarter of the year, the total area of licensed projects was 417.2 thousand square metres; a fall of 34.7% on the 638.7 thousand square metres during the first quarter of 2011. Similarly, the total value of these projects fell 35.9% to €409.5 million from €638.7 million in the first quarter of last year.

Construction of new homes

In March, the 439 permits were approved for the construction of 506 new homes comprising 288 single houses and 218 multiple housing units (such as apartments and other residential complexes).

This is a fall of 57.7% compared with March 2011 when building permits were issued for the construction of 1,196 new homes.

Source: Cyprus Statistical Service

During the first quarter of the year, the number of new homes for which permits have been issued has dropped 45.1% compared with the first quarter of 2011.

According to the Cyprus Statistical Service, building permits constitute a leading indicator of future activity in the construction sector.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Gavin,

    I’ve been through a very similar process at Limassol District Lands Office.

    Took me 6 months to extract the File number from my Developer and then was sent to 3 different places in the Limassol Lands office only to be finally told that the lady who was currently dealing with our file only came into the office on the first Wednesday of each month, but sometimes she didn’t always turn up, even on that day!

    I wonder if she’s only paid for one day a month?

    Yeah right!

  2. If you have a product and it does not sell you have to look at why,you have to make buying an easy, simple and risk free exercise, the title deeds fiasco needs to be sorted out and title deeds and other house buying requirements guaranteed for buyers so that if there is any fraud or re-appropriation of the buyers funds they can be easily returned to your buyers, your type of potential buyers, their funding/spending power, what they are looking for. The funding for this can be derived from all financially interested parties.

    Logically it is better to sell something than nothing.

    Then you have to target added value, price reductions possible extra services that can be offered.

    With housing your product needs to be well presented e.g. maintained and decorated, the use of a try before you buy contract will add possible new buyers.

    The environment around the homes needs to be cleaned have full and good road access, all utilities and a noisy polluted, littered environment e.g. barking dogs, industry, noisy entertainment places, smelly, smokey areas poorly signed roads and many other items quelled or quashed.

    The type of houses being built now should be what is termed “Active homes” that is not only Environmentally friendly but also giving the new owners the opportunity to re-sell surplus energy back to the utilities.

    In other words value added cheap to run homes and not the traditional way of building in Cyprus.

    What is the point of having a large housing stock in various stages of being built if there are no buyers for it?

    This needs the Cyprus government to step in and stop granting planning permission for unsold properties/building until the glut of houses are sorted out.

    Stop and see where you are, re-group and stabilise, before making more chaos.

    In effect the government needs to add to its excellent one-stop shop for ex-pats with a one-stop shop for house buyers renters and builders.

  3. Costas Apacket.

    I’m trying to help someone obtain their title deeds and this saga has been going on for almost 2 years. No mortgage on the land by the developer; no mortgage by the ‘owner’; nothing even vaguely untoward in fact.

    You should have been with me in Paphos Land Registry yesterday morning and witnessed the fandango that I had to endure for nigh on 2 hours.

    I went to the department where the ‘fakelo’ (file) has been languishing for 3 months to be told that it was in the adjoining building. Went there, took 10 minutes to find the right office and eureka! the file was indeed there – only to be told that part of the file was back from whence I’d come. Back I went and hunted for the new office of the original department where the new part of the original file (if you get what I mean) might be. Found the new office, explained what I’d done previously and waited for news of (a) did the new file actually exist and (b) how long would it be before they’d finish with it and send it to its mama in the adjoining building. Another wait of at least 30 minutes and yes, they’d got ‘baby’ file but it would take another 3 weeks to process. Ha!

    And there you have it. Back to those wonderful white buildings in Paphos at the end of the month for yet another thrilling instalment of hunt the parcel. Don’t you just love it…

  4. And still the staff in the planning and district lands offices can’t improve the rate of issuing Title Deeds.

    What exactly are they doing?

    I bet the carpets near departmental coffee machines need replacing by now.

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