The Cypriot citizenship by investment program is one of the newer ones on the market but it started to grab people鈥檚 attention quite fast and is already making a change for the better in the economy of the small Mediterranean island nation. Cyprus鈥� real estate market has seen record sales that are the highest in the last 9 years. The citizenship by investment programs that has been implemented to receive more foreign investors seem to work quite well for the Cypriot real estate market.聽
Demand for Housing in Cyprus in Increasing
In 2018 the amount of sales were increased by 6 percent from the figures in 2017. There was a total of 9242 contracts filled for real estate sales which is a 9 year high and is quite higher than 2017鈥檚 8734 contracts. However, the actual amount of investments dropped by 7 percent from 2017 to 2018, likely due to the change in the quality of houses that are sold. However, the 4.2 billion Euros that was invested in Cypriot real estate market in 2018 is still four times the amount it was invested during the slump of 2013, a meagre 1.1 billion Euros. Thus one can argue that Cyprus鈥檚 citizenship by investment programs are a big success for its real estate market.
High-End Properties are More Popular Among Investors
Among the foreign investors there seems to be a leaning towards buying more expensive, high-end, properties in Cyprus. There was an increase in demand of about 2 percent for such high-end houses from the foreign investors. 59% of high-end houses in Cyprus are sold in Limassol, followed by a 27% that is found in Paphos. This makes sense as both cities are quite large and are locations frequented by tourists to begin with.聽
The Real Estate Prices of Cyprus May See a Rise in the Future
Unfortunately, it is not all good news about the Cypriot real estate market as these latest developments did contribute to the rising market prices in the country. Prices have increased by about 7 percent in 2018 and it seems like this trend of increasing prices will go on for some time. It is thought that the increasing number of higher-end house sales are the main reason for this, since they ramp up the prices of houses surrounding them as well. However the increases in price should remain relatively manageable and with the building of even more houses in Cyprus the real estate market will certainly find its equilibrium in the coming years.聽
