The average asking price for a property in Malta at the start of this year was €400,000 but deeds of sale concluded that period were for averages of half that amount, a new report has found.  

Statistics published by property market analysts Djar and EY on Monday showed that the overall average asking price for properties in the first quarter of 2021 stood at around €400,000.

Data on deeds for the same period, collected from the National Statistics Office, had an average value of €200,000. 

The publication said it appears that buyers were more interested in affordable properties or homes considered ideal for first-time buyers. It also suggested a large number of sales directly from owners. 

In a breakdown of average listing prices, the data shows variations ranging from an average of around €300,000 for apartments and maisonettes to €400,000 for penthouses and €600,000 for terraced houses and houses of character.

The report says that most residential property listings maintained their asking prices during the pandemic, leading to minimal, if any, recorded average asking price changes.  

A previous edition of the same report found that prices for all types of property except for terraced houses fell marginally last year. 

Demand is high once more

Property transactions were up at the start of the year, with the report saying this indicates a trend of resurging market activity which began in the third quarter of 2020. 

That, the report says, may be an after-effect of pent-up demand and supply which had stalled in the first half of last year. 

The average asking prices per square metre by property type and region (with year-on-year changes).

It could also be a result of new development projects introducing substantial supply to the market. 

The number of residential property listings continued to rise this year, following a drop in the first half of 2020. 

The report also draws on recently published NSO data on promise of sale agreements and final deeds, which it says indicate that activity in the market has bounced back strongly.

The impact of COVID-19

The report says that the pandemic had caused disruptions and significantly impacted demand for property, with certain segments of the population ending up out of pocket and the arrival of tourists and foreign workers slowing. 

While this uncertainty has had a bearing on the market, the report says that government incentives helped keep demand relatively stable. 

Commercial property not hit as hard as rental market 

An analysis of asking prices for commercial properties indicates that this sector has not been hit as hard as the rental property market, which a Central Bank report said last year had seen an 11 per cent drop in prices.

The report says that the average growth in asking prices per square metre has slowed down significantly in commercial properties. The retail category, mostly shops, registered a marginal negative growth.

Commercial property data indicates that the average price per square metre have generally retained a positive but reduced growth (ranging from -0.9% for shops/retail to 4.7% for offices). 

Monitoring market observations in the respective commercial property sectors will be of particular interest over the next few months, the report concludes. 

Read the full report in the PDF below.