Anyone contemplating buying investment property abroad should be paying serious attention to the property boom going on in North Cyprus right now. Cyprus has, since 1974, been divided into Turkish North Cyprus and Greek Cypriot south Cyprus. Property prices in the North, which is less developed than the south and which has been isolated from the international community – most significantly in trade and international flight restrictions – for many years, are far lower in the South of the island, where the property market boomed prior to EU ascension but has since stagnated.
In fact, property in North Cyprus is, right now, between a third and a half the cost of property in the south, and even less than comparable properties in other Mediterranean property markets – Southern France and Spain, for example.
However, prices in the North have been shifting upwards since the Annan plan was fronted in 2004. Even though the plan failed – thanks to the influence of now departed, anti reunification Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos, who eagerly persuaded his people to reject the plan, whose fate was decided by referendum – property prices in the North maintained the strength that had developed during the optimist days prior to the failure.
Since this February, when the vehemently pro reunification Demetris Christofias was elected in the South, moves to heal the split between the two communities have progressed at an unprecedented rate, one commentator said that more was achieved to this end in the first 21 days of Christofias’s premiership than in the previous 21 months, and the EU’s welcoming of the election result underlines the extent to which Christofias’s victory contributes to the island’s optimistic future prospects.
Christofias and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mehmet Ali Talat are both adamant that they can complete a workable solution for reunification and to this end the pair are now meeting every week.
With reunification now looking like a graspable possibility the property market in North Cyprus is now the best place to buy investment property in Europe, and for this reason not just is the North seeing a huge influx of foreign investment into its existing properties (especially from Russian investors) but also developers are undertaking projects at an unprecedented rate. Off plan investment opportunities in North Cyprus properties are undoubtedly one of the most exciting in Europe right now.
This month saw the monumental first meeting between diplomats from the North and South, and the talks are proceeding at a good rate. Alexander Downer, the UN’s envoy to Cyprus, is – like the two leaders – a Liberal, who has reported that the talks are going well (Talat and Christofias themselves have instigated a self enforced media silence on the progress of each meeting).
If the high forecast capital appreciation in values wasn’t enough, the fact that property in North Cyprus is purchased in Sterling means that investors skirt around the problem that many other foreign property markets currently bare down on UK investors looking to buy investment property abroad, namely that switching Sterling for Euros doesn’t make any sense at the moment.
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