Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the housing needs brought mobility to the provincial Land Registries.
It seems that the market has not stopped working and the citizens resort to lending, putting mortgages. In addition, real estate transfers continued to be made by citizens, despite the lockdown of the economy for two months. However, as expected, mortgages and transfers moved at a slower pace than last year. The months with the most mobility are February and June.
In the first half of 2020, there was a 28% drop in the value and number of new mortgages. Specifically, 5,539 mortgages were submitted for the months of January-June with a value of €1.04 billion. The highest value of mortgages was recorded in Nicosia (€ 347.3 million), followed by Limassol (€306.6 million) and Larnaca (€163.9 million). The value of mortgages in Paphos amounted to € 148.2 million and in Famagusta €72.9 million. In the corresponding half of last year, 7.675 mortgages were recorded with a value of € 1.45 billion. Both the number and the value of this year's mortgages were 28% lower.
However, for 2019, the new mortgages amounted to € 3 billion and concerned 28.132 cases. It is noted that the value of mortgages for 2019 remained stable from last year, as for 2018, new mortgages amounted to €3.1 billion. The corresponding amount in 2017 amounted to €3.7 billion.
At the same time, the transfers were lower by 43.4% in the first half of 2020 compared to the corresponding half of 2019.
According to data from the Land Registry, during the months of January-June, 4,859 real estate transfers took place. The total declared amount reached € 926.7 million and the accepted amount € 1 billion. Respectively, in the corresponding period last year, 7,262 transfers were made. The amount declared in the land registry was € 1.7 billion while the accepted amount reached €1.8 billion.
It is worth mentioning that the months with the most mobility were February and June, the months before and after the lockdown. 1,216 cases were registered in February and 1,296 cases in June, while in April only 236.
Source: Philenews