The simple fact is that the British love-affair with Cyprus is about more than money...
There's hardly any need to mention that the island’s location, in the heart of the eastern Mediterranean, makes it a veritable sun-trap, with an average of 326 days of sunshine per year; ideal for those of you with a sun-loving lifestyle. Oh, and pretty much everyone speaks English; this in itself is a huge draw. What's more, Cyprus provides visitors with an intriguing mixture of history & culture, nightlife, outdoor pursuits, water sports and a variety of leisure activities.
Indeed, on the subject of leisure, the past few years have seen an explosion in the popularity of Cyprus' golf courses, existing, proposed, and in some cases purely fictitious (such as the Oroklini golf course, for instance), a trend which has in turn led to much talk about real estate investments in the Republic. Recent troubles with water shortages, title deeds, and the global economic downturn, however, mean that golf properties in Cyprus must be approached with a great deal of research if one is to tell the remaining prime investments from the many complete duds.
Then there are the banking, tax and legal systems which, due to the fact the Cyprus used to be a British colony, are largely based on their UK equivalents, although there has of course been a certain amount of ‘evolution’ since the island's independence back in 1960. It may be worth noting that, although the Republic’s tax system is largely based on the British one, it is in fact far more benevolent than the UK’s. For instance, even Cyprus' income tax rates are set at a maximum 25%, rather than the 40% payable on an equivalent income in Britain.
On the whole, overseas real estate buyers still love Cyprus properties for a number of reasons ranging across the topics listed above and many more besides. Things have of course slowed down in light of recent developments on the global and local stages, and many buyers are now approaching the Cyprus property sales market with much greater caution. This has, however, also served to weed out the many low-quality real estate developers who jumped on the Cyprus property bandwagon in its later stages, many of whom have declared bankruptcy in the past twelve months.
What many prospective buyers are now realising, is the need for solid, unniased advice from a reputable long-term operator in the Cyprus property sales market, a company like Aphrodite Sun Properties. |
