In Cyprus, prices fall

In the first owners meeting of real estate investment Vikla Cyprus swung with a good deal of pathos: "This is a historic moment," said the chairman of the meeting, the Briton David Wilson, and suggested that in view of the Independence of the former British colony on 1 . October also continue to celebrate a "Vikla Independence Day". The theatricality may be forgiven for the property owners, as the culmination of a long-standing bureaucratic hurdles was the so-called title deeds, the title deeds.

The legally secure proof of who owns the property, but is essential in times of financial crisis: Many builders use the completed real estate projects for the construction of its new credit protection. If a real estate developer in financial difficulties, have the owner of the house without title deeds bad cards to make their possession claim against the bank argued. The sale of houses and apartments in the picturesque construction project Vikla in Tsada above the town of Paphos began in 2000.

Client is the real estate developer Leptos, one of the largest companies in Cyprus, which claims to have already sold more than 20 000 homes. Such as competitor Aristo Developers also Leptos considered serious company, in which the buyer does not have to fear for their property. The excess supply increases the pressure However, the success of Michael Leptos, which dates from the 1974 Turkish part of the island in the late 1970s with the construction of holiday homes and facilities in the southwest of the island began to set up some imitators - unfortunately, not necessarily to the advantage of region. Over the past ten or 15 years some property owners had the idea to call himself a real estate developer and also try their luck with cottages. One or the other as well as ruin swindled shoppers show that was not such a good idea. 

 The troika of the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, which ended its negotiations with the Cypriot Government has an assistance program for the island last Thursday without result, estimates the number of unsold houses and apartments in some 50 000, before the especially battered by the crisis in Greece banks in Cyprus are based on a portfolio of some 10 000 homes. Which may be true even number, the excess supply of homes increases the pressure further on home prices. Compared to last year are Homes on average become cheaper by 5.9 percent, shows the real estate index of the Cyprus Central Bank. 

Overheated, especially the market for used homes. Because, for example, the UK government has launched a rigid savings program, you sell a lot of British Cypriot holiday or retirement home to downright predatory pricing in order to get money. Buyers had in the region of Paphos, for example, according to the 2009 count brokers association RICS still on average with a house price to 460,417 euros, according to recent surveys, there are only 389 031 euros. Chinese interest The decline in house prices is very different, however, depending on the region. In the east of the island, prices, how the central bank reported in a small Greek-controlled Famagusta District - the city is in the hands of the Turkish occupiers - compared to the previous year by 11 percent, in the southeastern Larnaca by 8 percent. In the currently popular among holiday property owners in the southwest region of Paphos market observers, however, see signs of a relative stabilization of prices: In the second quarter of 2012, prices for apartments fell "only" 0.4 per cent for houses and 0.5 per cent. The central bank blames mainly the interest of Chinese buyers responsibility. "The growing number of Chinese customers makes us great joy," says Andreas Findiklis, general manager of the Leptos Group. So far, the region around Paphos popular with buyers from the UK, while the area around Limassol traditionally good at Russian property buyers arrive. 

 Although they now increasingly Chinese advertising posters from property developers discovered along the way, you can see in and around Paphos still barely Chinese. Because most have a house in Cyprus before something else, than to enjoy the approximately 340 sunny days on the island in your own home. They buy rather a gateway to Europe. As a non-Europeans must prove Chinese customers buy a property for at least 300 000 euros and that they can financially provide for themselves. They are property owners, they get a residence permit and only once every two years must be looking in Cyprus. Before them is open to Europe - the Schengen Agreement, thank the the abolition of checks at their common borders and regulate the movement of people and goods. However, the buyers from Asia also have special needs, to which the Cypriot real estate sellers have used to. Vikla example, had 44 at the request of the buyer - not least bureaucratically complicated because the said title deed - be renamed Vikla 88th For number 4, and all their combinations regarded in China as an unlucky number.