ACCORDING to figures released earlier today by the Department of Lands and Surveys, a total of 180 contracts of sale in favour of overseas buyers were deposited at Land Registries throughout Cyprus in September compared to the 173 deposited in September 2009.
Overseas demand for property is still very poor. And although the market is showing signs of a weak recovery, the number of properties sold to foreign buyers during the first nine months of this year (1,402) is still down by more than 75 percent on the number sold during the same period in 2008 (5,622).
So far this year, Nicosia has performed particularly well with sales up by 50.5% followed by Famagusta, where sales have gone up by 7.4% – and finally Limassol, where sales have increased by 3.2%.
However, sales in the overseas ‘hot spots’ of Paphos and Larnaca are down by 6.8% and 12.4% respectively compared to last year.
As we reported last month, Chairman of the Estate Agents Association of Cyprus Solomon Kourouklides has stressed the need to find new overseas markets for Cyprus such as China, the Arabic countries and Iran.
The property market could be given a boost by an official two-day visit by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Cyprus this week. A Cyprus-Russia Business Forum is to be held on Thursday which is anticipated to cover many areas of economic cooperation between the two countries including financial services, investments, land development, shipping, commerce and industry. It has also been reported that that the two governments may sign a double taxation agreement during Mr Medvedev’s visit.