ACCORDING to Eurostat statistics published yesterday, construction activity in Cyprus fell 17.5% during the first quarter of 2015 compared with the same period in 2014 following a 22.3% decline in the previous quarter.
The largest increases in activity were recorded in Greece (38.4%), Romania (13.0%), Sweden (10.7%) and Lithuania (9.9%).
The biggest falls were recorded in Cyprus (-17.5%), France (-5.9%), Germany & Luxembourg (-3.3%).
In the 19 countries in the Eurozone construction activity fell by 1.8% and in all European Union member states, activity fell 0.1%.
@Aggis Demetriou. Only time will tell if we have to wait 30 years for properties to reach the levels of 2011, however history shows that property is a good LONG term investment. I can however tell you, as reported on this forum previously that since 2011 Cyprus property prices have dropped much less than other countries like Spain and Portugal.
In fact over the long term, Cyprus has been one of the best performing countries for property investment. Figures recently released by the ECB show that since 2003 property prices in Cyprus have increased by 62%. In Spain it is 9.4%, Portugal 5.2% and in Greece a drop of 12.8%
The number of Building permits issued in the first part of this year was an increase on last year. I am sure with all of the improvements being made here, with regard to Title Deeds and Transfer Tax – the property market will continue to improve.
@Peter Howard – The titles status is still at a snails pace, once a planning application is submitted the planners should effect plot titles for a complex or for more than 2 houses being built.
Final approvals should be treated a separate issue, this will guarantee title at point of sale.
Cyprus especially in the UK for year 2015 has had no promotion, the figures the land registry have re sales are basically for pieces of land old apartments and old property sales which now have titles, there is very very little new property being sold.
As a realist Cyprus property market will never recover to 2011 prices not for at least 30 years, Cyprus needs population many hundreds of thousands something that will never happen here.
@Aggis Demetriou – I agree with you that most buyers are now looking for property in Cyprus that has Title Deeds, and thankfully the situation is now improving.
You comment that Cyprus is not promoted anywhere in the world – on what is this based ? During the last year all of the main newspapers in the UK have had full page articles about the positive side of Cyprus. A range of TV programmes, like A Place in the Sun have featured Cyprus property and if you visit a property website like Rightmove in the UK, you will find that Cyprus is featured more heavily than either Turkey or Greece.
A short time ago you assured everybody that nobody would buy property in Cyprus – the figures from Land Registry show a different picture !
Many people on a forum like this have financial problems, due to Swiss Franc mortgages as well as many other reasons – and a more positive property market will solve many of these problems. Due to efforts from people like Nigel and the Troika, the legality of buying property here, is improving and with the advantageous exchange rate we have to hope that the situation continues to improve – to the benefit of everybody
@Nigel Howarth – Even a naive Brit will ask for a title thanks to the internet and your website.
Not sure if your aware Cyprus is not promoted anywhere in the world at this moment especially in England, if I was to buy a place in the sun I would probably choose turkey or a Greek Island for half the price.
Racism / bureaucracy always gets you in the end!
The Euro is at a low against most currencies especially British pound trading at the moment at 1.43 it may go to 1.50 and I can assure you nobody will be investing in Cyprus.
No matter what the government may do they just don’t have it!
@Aggis Demetriou on 2015/07/21 at 11:39 am – Sterling is at it highest level against the Euro for more than 7 years. This could well encourage naive British investors to buy.
The Euro according to Blackadder
Baldrick: “What I want to know, Sir, is before there was a Euro there were lots of different types of money that different people used. And now there’s only one type of money that the foreign people use. And what I want to know is, how did we get from one state of affairs to the other state of affairs?â€Â
Blackadder: “Baldrick. Do you mean, how did the Euro start?â€Â
Baldrick: “Yes Sirâ€Â.
Blackadder: “Well, you see Baldrick, back in the 1980s there were many different countries all running their own finances and using different types of money. On one side you had the major economies of France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, and on the other, the weaker nations of Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Portugal. They got together and decided that it would be much easier for everyone if they could all use the same money, have one Central Bank, and belong to one large club where everyone would be happy. This meant that there could never be a situation whereby financial meltdown would lead to social unrest, wars and crisesâ€Â.
Baldrick: “But, Sir, isn’t this a sort of a crisis?â€Â
Blackadder: “That’s right Baldrick. You see, there was only one slight flaw with the planâ€Â.
Baldrick: “What was that then, Sir?â€Â
Blackadder: “It was ********â€Â.
Just curious, is there any log of how many completed empty unsold units there are on the island? Or how many incomplete units there are?
Sick of listening to the govt preaching about how a potential solution will bring a much anticipated recovery in the building sector! are they mad….surely the market is over saturated with properties as it stands….
@houlou on 2015/07/20 at 5:58 pm – There are no official figures, but a report by Fiona Mullen three years ago gives a good indication – Cyprus has a growing housing stock overhang. I would guess around 30,000.
The house building boom was promoted and supported by dubious question free bank loans and mortgages which the banks thought would (and probably did initially) earn them a fortune in interest repayments. Unfortunately the developers took the bank loans and mortgages as well as the buyers money and somehow overlooked the inconvenience of actually completing the developments or repaying the loans.
Whilst a lot of bad publicity (mainly thanks to the internet) over this ‘unfortunate matter’ on the part of the developers and banks didn’t help, the global recession, the collapse of the banks, the EU bail out and the unprecedented EU troika scrutiny of ROC practices, culture and laws is the possible killer blow to the unscrupulous be it developer, banker or politician. The big deterrent for crime in any country is the chances of getting caught and severely punished. At last, the latter is starting to become a reality.
Thanks Pete. Well said. I concur with your comments. Let’s see how the current trial goes with the judgement due on the 28th of July. I guess that will gives a direction on how things are to go.
You wouldn’t think there is a slump. I have been trying for weeks to source builders and tradesmen at reasonable prices (€80 to 100 per day) but am offered every excuse under the sun why they really do need to quote on a whole job basis or some other excuse all of course designed to cloud the issues and work in order to heap charge upon charge and cloud the overall cost. As I tell them I am 67 not stupid. It seems most are not prepared to get out of bed for that so someone somewhere is earning or being given far more than that.
I wish we would get away from this thinking that Cyprus was the only country to recapitalise their banks. We were not robbed, as unsecured creditors our money was used to recapitalise as has always been accepted banking procedure. If we choose to remain ignorant of the fact then so be it. In UK the government chose to recapitalise out of the public purse – it is still taxpayers money so even those with no savings or association with the bank still had to pay up. The end result is that we all get shafted for the excesses and incompetence of bankers. I don’t see too many of us complaining about the 4.6%+ we were earning on money when the rest of Europe were only earning at best 0.5% and in many cases 0.1%. So lets get real here.
I’m not surprised and I rather hope it’ll get worse. For years we’ve been telling the powers that be to clean up their act or suffer the consequences and for years they’ve been ignoring us and screwing the public for every last penny they can get, so with reduced income and increased public spending it was only a matter of time before they ran out of other peoples money.
Thank God Troika insisted the MOU is more or less adhered to otherwise untold amounts of money would disappear into very deep pockets and things would’ve gone on as before. And until Cyprus gets to grips with all the ills we’ve been telling them about, the problem will continue; and we’re still waiting for an investigation into the person responsible for the houses in the picture above.
@Richard think that you way off the mark name one EU country that has gone to the wall has robbed people of there life savings. Please remember that all the black money had already been transferred out of of the Cyprus banks before the lock down on the bank system.
My opinion is like Greece the ROC live in there own make believe world that many people have been burnt by the dishonest bad practices which has gone especially during the the peak years with all the so called property Developers riding around on there horses ripping people off. As Cyprus is poorly regulated, and the process is out of the 60s a second bank bail out is on the cards when the wheels fall off again.
One word: Karma.
Cyprus is just at the extreme sharp-end of what is probably going to unfold globally. It’s not the first country to experience bank bail-in and I for one – don’t think it will be the last.
Where Cyprus differs from the norm is this strange cultural attitude that is probably born out it’s unique location and the fact they have been manipulating ‘invaders’ for about 7000 years.
They’ve also been used to operating under the radar for the same length of time – but worldwide technology has lifted the lid on that now – so the rules have all changed.
@ Steve R should not be any surprise to anyone who going to buy a new build property in Cyprus now especially where other EU countries that property prices are still more affordable and better quality off course the property legal governance is far more transparent.
The Government is blind to the the fact that after the bail in where a lot of people lost there saving nobody is going to take the risk.
The Government have been warned about this happening year on year but they just seem to ignore it. Well it looks like the day has arrived