05/05/2008 08:21
According to Land Register figures released recently, eight thousand properties in Cyprus have been sold to non-Cypriots in the past five years. The figures give details on external demand and reflect the size of foreign capital inflow in the island’s property market. However, external demand is only one tenth of the total demand.
The highest foreign capital inflow comes from the United Kingdom (60%). The dependence on British buyers is exceptionally important this year, since the British property market faces the biggest problems in the past decade and the sterling has been devaluated by 20% in the past three months.
40% of the properties sold to non-Cypriots are flats, 24% are houses, 19% are fields and 13% plots.
When Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, purchases by non Cypriots dropped to 1121 properties, most of which concerned flats, houses and fields. They were only 6.5% of the 17,379 voluntary property sales in 2004.
After the EU accession, purchases neared 10% of the total property sales, reaching 1856 properties in 2005, 2198 properties in 2006 and 2354 in 2007. By mid April 2008, the non-Cypriots bought 508 properties, flats and houses mostly.
Almost 60% of the buyers were British and 14.5% were Greeks.
Despite the impression for a strong presence of Russian buyers in the market, the Russian persist in depositing their funds to banks at the current stage. In the past four years, the Russians bought 9.1% of the total 8037 properties transferred to non-Cypriots, followed by the Germans (2.3%) and the Ukrainians (0.9%). The remaining 14.8% was bought by citizens from a hundred countries.
The highest foreign capital inflow comes from the United Kingdom (60%). The dependence on British buyers is exceptionally important this year, since the British property market faces the biggest problems in the past decade and the sterling has been devaluated by 20% in the past three months.
40% of the properties sold to non-Cypriots are flats, 24% are houses, 19% are fields and 13% plots.
When Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, purchases by non Cypriots dropped to 1121 properties, most of which concerned flats, houses and fields. They were only 6.5% of the 17,379 voluntary property sales in 2004.
After the EU accession, purchases neared 10% of the total property sales, reaching 1856 properties in 2005, 2198 properties in 2006 and 2354 in 2007. By mid April 2008, the non-Cypriots bought 508 properties, flats and houses mostly.
Almost 60% of the buyers were British and 14.5% were Greeks.
Despite the impression for a strong presence of Russian buyers in the market, the Russian persist in depositing their funds to banks at the current stage. In the past four years, the Russians bought 9.1% of the total 8037 properties transferred to non-Cypriots, followed by the Germans (2.3%) and the Ukrainians (0.9%). The remaining 14.8% was bought by citizens from a hundred countries.