The Cyprus real estate sales to foreigners has fallen off a cliff, to low levels after being hit by coronavirus pandemic. New figures released by land registry office shows registered sale contracts for foreign buyers plummeted by almost 65% after reaching peak in Feb.
Foreign buyers with registered contract of sales
| EU | Non-EU | Total | |
| Jan | 118 | 235 | 353 |
| Feb | 165 | 205 | 370 |
| Mar | 95 | 136 | 231 |
| Apr | 57 | 74 | 131 |
Larnaca registered the lowest sale contracts from non-eu buyers., while Paphos and Limassol property sales down by half in april from its feb levels.
Foreign buyers with registered contract of sales
| Non-EU | Larnaca | Limassol | Paphos |
| Jan | 68 | 45 | 84 |
| Feb | 57 | 51 | 71 |
| Mar | 49 | 41 | 31 |
| Apr | 14 | 23 | 33 |
The demand for Cyprus real estate market is fueled by foreigners buying property in Cyprus mostly EU citizens and third country nationals. The figures also reveal EU citizens bought zero properties in Larnaca during march and april.
Cyprus so far recorded less than 1000 coronavirus cases, more than half recovered with 17 deaths. As of May 21, 2020 Cyprus announced gradual easing of lockdown measures
The Cyprus investment citizenship scheme also fuels demand for luxury property sales above €2 million from foreign property buyers. With Cyprus travel and tourism hit by 60%, the investment scheme provides an opportunity to raise investment to exit the crisis and save real estate market from meltdown.
The European commission economic outlook report said EU economy would enter into deep recessive due to pandemic and projected Cyprus economy would contract by -7.4%, it grew by 3.2% in 2019
In May 2019, Cyprus announced several steps with tightening of regulations and due diligence rules for the investor citizenship scheme, such as requirement of schengen visas and increasing the holding period of investments.
Last month Financial mirror, reported “To date, we have collected from such investors some €6.5 bln and we now want to raise another €1 bln, based on some 100 pending applications and 700 others waiting in the queue.”
Cyprus recently announced speedingup the examination of pending citizenship applications on urgent basis to grapple with the Covid-19 pandemic.
