Malta Property Avoids Cold Winds

Residential holiday home property markets the world over are seeing sharp price declines and a real lack of serious buyers as the recession hits home.

But it seems some areas of Europe are doing better than others at attracting new buyers and maintaining current property prices, while other locations have seen much sharper drops in their real estate prices.

Malta is a good example of somewhere that has seen sharp prices in recent years, helped by a buoyant domestic market complemented with buyers from overseas looking for second homes and to move to Malta on a permanent basis, which normally entails buying a Malta property. Overall Malta property might have dropped under three per cent in 2008 if recently released bank statistics are to be believed.

And Malta is a classic example of an island that could see property prices fall through the floor as the domestic market quietens down and international buyers from her main tourist market - the UK - stop buying altogether.

But at less than a three per cent drop, the Malta properties for sale market has so far avoided the big falls witnessed by some areas of Europe, despite her main market of the UK hiting recession and the value of the British pound dropping in value against the Euro - and it has avoided the price drop by diversifying, and seeing other nationalities move into the void left by the British buyers, notably from Norway and other Scanadanavian countries.

Whether Malta can withstand the pressures of the global economy taking a downturn remains to be seen, but 2009 does depend still largely on the UK economy, which at the moment isn't looking too promising.

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The hope of more buyers coming from countries like Norway is high, with some estimates suggesting that Norwegians could buy some 35,000 European properties between them next year, taking up some of the slack from a drop in the number of British and Irish property buyers - how many of those 35,000 buyers would be for Malta isn't easily answered, and some estate agents fear it will not match the British and Irish demand of recent years.

Looking at a Malta map, many buyers, whether from the UK,Ireland, Norway or elsewhere tend to head to the north of the island, to areas such as Mellieha and St Paul's Bay, and with new properties going up over the last couple of years there could be some bargains from real estate developers hoping to improve their cash flow during the 2009 downturn.

And it's not just the property market in Malta that is hoping for a good 2009. The holidays industry has seen a good revival over the last three years, with the number of holidays in Malta being sold increasing each year, and cruise ship passenger number arrivals hitting record numbers too - over 500,000 for 2008.

The holidays in Malta market reversed a steady decline in her fortunes three years ago when low cost airlines started flying to Malta's Luqa Airport. One major holiday company had even considered dropping Malta altogether as a holiday destination for British tourists, but the low cost flights to Malta has seen the Malta holiday industry revitalised. Without the low cost airlines moving in Malta would almost certainly be a niche tourist market now.

But there could be something that will hit both the holidays and real estate markets in 2009 which the island has no control over - the strength of the Euro - which the island now uses - and the British Pound. In spite of the property and holiday markets diversifying and attracting new markets the British market is still by far Malta's biggest. The Pound has dropped sharply against the Euro, and British tourists might be tempted to try holiday destinations such as Turkey which is outside the Eurozone in 2009 as it will offer good value for money.

There's a lot of factors which will determine if 2009 is good for Malta, the island will be hoping for a bit of good luck.

Seed Newsvine

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