March 2, 2011 1:07 pm
Advertised property prices rose by 1.5% in the third quarter of 2010 on top of an increase of 0.5% during the previous quarter, the Central Bank reported today.
Reporting in the Quarterly Review on its ongoing survey of advertised prices, the bank said that disaggregated results showed that the overall increase was primarily due to higher asking prices for apartments and, to a lesser extent, for maisonettes and properties in another categorythat consists of townhouses, houses of character and villas.
Prices in that category went up by an annual 7.1%. This was in line with the previous quarter’s increase and contributed above half a percentage point to the overall rise in property prices.
Prices of apartments – which made up three-fifths of properties surveyed – rose by 3.4% on a year earlier, contributing around 0.8 percentage points to overall property price inflation.
Meanwhile, prices of maisonettes gained 2.2%, accounting for around 0.3 percentage points of the overall increase. However, asking prices for terraced houses dropped by 6.7%, thus lowering overall property price inflation by almost half a percentage point.
Available information regarding the supply of advertised properties for sale suggests that the annual decline seems to be coming to an end with the number of properties for sale during the third quarter remaining almost unchanged when compared with the corresponding quarter of the previous year,” the bank said.”
A Central Bank survey stated: “Furthermore, following several quarters of consecutive falls, the number of building permits issued by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority rose by 4.3% year-on-year. Permits issued for apartments, which account for around three-fourths of the total, rose by 6.8%, while permits for the townhouse/character house/villa category also contributed to the rise. The increase in these categories offset the decline in permits issued for maisonettes.“
Source: www.timesofmalta.com
Categorised in: News & Press Releases
