Property prices in Malta have shot up by 40% since 2017, growing at a rate of roughly 6% each year, according to an analysis carried out by KPMG.

The report, published on Friday, analysed how asking prices for different types of properties have changed over the past seven years, using the firm’s internal database of over 19,000 properties and picking out the median price for each type of property.

The median price attempts to understand the cost of properties by looking at the entire range of prices across the housing market and selecting the middle price. This is often a more accurate measure than the average price, which is more likely to be skewed by properties that are either extremely expensive or extremely cheap.

While the price of all properties increased, the increases varied across different types of homes.

The same report found that low-income earners across Malta are facing significant difficulties in affording properties.

Apartments

Apartments make up the overwhelming majority of properties in the country, with the most recent census finding that there are now over 156,000 apartments across Malta and Gozo.

The median price of apartments has shot up by 40% since 2017, rising from €200,000 seven years ago to €280,000 this year.

Going even further back, data provided by KPMG shows that the median price of an apartment was just over €142,000 in 2013. This means that the price of a finished apartment has doubled in the space of ten years.

Prices of apartments appear to have stabilised over the past year, with the median price only rising by a marginal 0.2% in 2022.

Penthouses

A penthouse will set you back €369,800 in 2023, some €70,000 more than it would have back in 2017, when the median price was just under €300,000.

The price of penthouses appeared to have remained relatively fixed in recent years, with KPMG finding that there have been “minimal to no shifts” since 2021.

On the other hand, penthouses appear to be getting larger, growing from 136 square metres in 2022 to 148 square metres the following year.

Maisonettes

The price of a maisonette has risen by roughly €100,000 since 2017, going from just over €200,000 six years ago to €310,000 today.

KPMG say that maisonettes are also becoming increasingly popular, with almost 2,300 of them listed for sale in 2023.

Like in the case of several other types of homes, the price of maisonettes remained relatively stable throughout the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, before rising again since then. In fact, the median price of a maisonette grew by 4% in the last year alone.

Terraced houses

Unlike some other types of properties, the asking price of terraced houses appears to have dipped in recent years, going from just under €650,000 last year to €600,000 today, an almost 8% decrease.

Nonetheless, the overall cost has still risen dramatically throughout the seven years being analysed, with a €200,000 rise since 2017.

KPMG attributes the recent dip to the fact that there are fewer terraced houses for sale in pricier parts of the country, with most listings now being in cheaper areas.

Just over a quarter of all listings for terraced houses are in the relatively cheaper Southern region, while a further quarter are in the Central region. On the other hand, fewer than one in ten are in the pricier Northern Harbour region.

This shows that “some traditionally more affordable regions expanded their share of total listings, in contrast to regions known for higher property prices”, KPMG say.

Villas

Like terraced houses, the asking price of villas appear to be on the slide, registering a 10% dip over the past year.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of villas still demand an extraordinarily high asking price, with over two-thirds of villas being listed at a price of over €1.3m.

Gozo and the South up, Grand Harbour down

The report finds that the location of a property is key to its asking price, with the price per square metre varying drastically from one region of the country to the next.

KPMG’s analysis compared the price per square metre of a typical finished apartment across the different regions of the country, to determine which is the priciest.

The Grand Harbour and Northern Harbour topped the tabled, at almost €3,000 per square metre. On the other hand , Gozo was comfortably the cheapest region, with a price of €1,859 per square metre, followed by the South at a little over €2,100.

Most regions experienced a slight dip in the past year, with only Gozo and the South seeing slight increases in the price per square metre for properties on the market. On the other hand, the North West, Central, Northern Harbour and Grand Harbour regions all experienced drops.

Despite being amongst the most expensive regions in the country, the price per square metre in the Grand Harbour region dipped by a staggering 23% since 2022, going from almost €3,800 a year ago to just over €2,900 today.

This, however, follows a similar increase in the previous year, suggesting that it is simply a matter of prices in the area returning to normality.