Selling house prices

The housing market has had an exceptional few years. In fact, the price increases have been so substantial that a property purchased in 2013 at €130,000 would cost €260,000 in 2022. This means that the housing prices have essentially doubled in a mere nine years.

Although this recent surge in selling prices may seem out of the ordinary, this is not an isolated event in recent history. Malta’s house prices have been on a near constant upward trajectory since the late 1980s.

Central Bank of Malta data shows that prices increased drastically in the early to late 2000s. In fact, an increase in prices of 72 per cent was registered between 2000 and 2005. This increase may have been caused by a number of factors. Factors such as optimism about Malta’s EU accession in 2004 and Maltese investors moving money held abroad into the Maltese property market.

The rapid climb in house prices that started after 2013 was driven by different factors to that experienced in the 2000s. Firstly, an exceptional increase in demand for housing occurred as the foreign-born population increased dramatically, eventually reaching 120,000 in number. This amounted to almost one fourth of the total population,...