Cyprus real estate experts took a retrospective look at the country’s real estate market at the end of the year. They evaluated the circumstances that influenced it and highlighted the main factors that could affect the future of the rental industry.

The key factor affecting the market was of course the coronavirus pandemic. President of the Cyprus Property Owners Association (KSIA) Giorgos Mouskidis pointed out that the decline in prices began in the second half of 2020 – that is, after the first wave of COVID-19. As a consequence, rental prices fell by 10-20% – the head of the Cyprus Association of Certified Valuers and Property Consultants Kyriakos Talatinis said that the greatest decline in the areas of the island, where students are usually rented homes. First of all Nicosia, where traditionally there are a lot of students from Greece – but Limassol, where the colleges are dominated by locals, the trend almost did not affect.

The situation on the rental market in 2021, according to experts, will depend on how active and effective will be the vaccination of Cypriot residents, whether students will return to universities and how soon foreign tourists will appear on the island again.

“In the near future, prices will either remain at the current level or decrease slightly,” believes Giorgos Mouskidis. – The fact that a number of countries have already started to vaccinate the population has changed the psychology in the world, and panic and negative sentiments are disappearing.

Kyriakos Talatinis, for his part, believes that one of the decisive issues affecting the Cypriot rental market is whether students will stay in distance learning or return to universities. “If they don’t come back – we will see a further drop in prices. If the epidemiological situation improves, then the real estate rental market is also expected to stabilize (with some delay),” the expert explained.