Recently, the Cypriot collateral management company KEDIPES announced that since its inception it had sold 9,356 properties in physical and electronic auctions in Cyprus for a total of €1.002 billion.
In 2024 alone, 2,558 mortgaged properties worth €61.5 million were sold (of which 108 properties worth €4.8 million were sold in the fourth quarter).
Interestingly, the total volume of property sales through doValue Cyprus Ltd since the start of the cooperation reached €876.4 million, including €27.7 million sold in the last quarter of 2024. Over a six-year period, the average sale price increased by 4.5% compared to the revaluation-adjusted recovery price. At the same time, 2,978 properties with a total value of €293.7 million were sold within a year of their return, indicating stable demand, with the exception of the pandemic period (March-May 2020).
Returns after unsuccessful auctions decreased: €22.1 million in 2024 compared to €26.7 million in 2023 and €49.8 million in 2022. The structure of the KEDIPES portfolio at the end of 2024 was as follows
- Land - €149.3 million
- Residential properties - €44 million
- Commercial and industrial properties - €57 million.
- Properties to be transferred to the State - €130 million.
By city, sales of mortgaged properties for 2024 are distributed as follows
- Nicosia - 40%.
- Limassol - 18% Paphos - 15%
- Larnaca - 20%
- Famagusta free areas - 7%.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, revenues from the sale of mortgaged properties totalled €27.9 million, 12.6% lower than in the previous quarter and 24% lower than in the same period of 2023. Compared to 2022-2023, the structure of sales has shifted towards land, whereas in previous years residential and commercial properties led the way.
Remember that buying a mortgaged property in Cyprus is an opportunity to make a good investment or buy a quality property for personal use.
In reality, the opposite can happen if the time spent on bureaucratic issues related to the purchase of bank owned property in Cyprus is not worth the benefit that buyers initially expect. Many people mistakenly believe that mortgaged property is sold like goods in a shop, but only at a discount. This is not the case. Mortgaged property in Cyprus is property that is pledged to a creditor bank or on its balance sheet after foreclosure by the debtor.
For example, if a developer goes bankrupt, his property is transferred to a banking organisation which then sells the property, usually by auction. At auction, property can be bought from a bank at a significant discount. However, there are often cases where the final price of the property at auction is unreasonably high.
In order to make the purchase of a property really profitable, you should buy it before it is transferred to the bank's balance sheet, as additional financial charges will then be added to its value. In other words, it is better to negotiate with the original owner and buy the property you are interested in at a good discount and with financial obligations.