24.02.2022
Real estate agents who are given access to real estate price data benefit property buyers, Marinos Kineiro, president of the Real Estate Agents Registration Board, said Wednesday.
This refers to the Land Registry’s recent decision to allow real estate brokers access to comparative sales price data for properties in Cyprus, which was the first time that only real estate appraisers could access this information.
“This greatly improves the quality of service real estate agents can provide to their clients,” Kineiro said.
“This is a development that increases market transparency, allowing real estate agents to know the real facts about the transactions being made and, therefore, be able to inform their interested clients or buyers about the trends in the real estate market, the prices of the property they are interested in, as well as data on its geographical area,” — he added.
The council president also said that this development will help the entire sector, especially property buyers, and also praised the land registry and the government for putting open data policies into practice.
Meanwhile, Kineiro also spoke out on the issue of a general property valuation, the results of which, reflecting property prices as of January 2021, will be published in May this year.A property appraisal is conducted by the land registry every three years, taking into account the natural and legal attributes of the property, including building type, land and all associated details, property size, built-up area, and access to property, among other factors.
Kineiro said that while the appraisal, which concerns approximately two million properties, is primarily for tax purposes, it also helps to provide insight into the Cyprus property market at the time of the appraisal.
“We welcome the practice of general valuations carried out by the land registry, which, in addition to their use for tax purposes, has also provided valuable data that, if used correctly, can help develop the real estate market,” he said.
However, Kineiro said it was not ideal to have this assessment every three years, and instead suggested increasing the gap between assessments to five years. Kineiro also urged property owners to review the valuation results after they are released to ensure that the valuation matches the characteristics of their property.
“In case they have any objection regarding the attributes of the property in question, the objection can be made free of charge within six months of the publication of the results,” he said. If property owners wish to object to the appraisal of their property, even if all attributes have been correctly taken into account, certain fees apply.However, Kineiro warned property owners and other stakeholders that the valuation amount should not form the basis for any property sales.
“Real estate transactions should be carried out only after an assessment carried out by a specialist, and taking into account real market data,” he concluded.
President of the Board of Registration of Real Estate Agents Marinos Kineiro
