Investment Properties in Northern Cyprus: The Right Time and the Right Place

Buying investment property in the right place might just be the solution to our economic woes, according to some overseas property experts. With property prices in the UK and much of Europe now falling or, at the best, stagnating, property investors are looking toward emerging property markets where values are appreciating. North Cyprus has a property market that has been condensed by the restriction on trade and transport links that have been in place since the conflict of 1974, a conflict which saw Turkey claim the Northern third of the island as the de facto state of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus.

As a result of the complex political and military situation that has characterised the small Mediterranean island's fate for the last thirty years property prices in the Northern Cyprus property market have remained far lower than those in the Republic of Cyprus, where development has proceeded along similar lines as that in other Mediterranean tourist destinations and has, in the eyes of many people, become over developed and thus lost its original charm.

In contrast, Northern Cyprus benefits from the unspoilt natural charm that is now removed from many other holiday hotspots in Europe. Newspapers, tour operators and property developers are all taking interest in the unique combination of an easily accessible holiday destination that has not yet borne the brunt of the wide scale development.

Not only is North Cyprus an emerging tourist hotspot but also a unique location for property investments as the same factors that have kept the northern third of the island untouched by vast numbers of holiday makers have also ensured that property prices have remained far lower than those in the south and lower still than those in other popular tourist destinations on the Mediterranean, places like, for example, Southern France and Spain.

Since 2002 property prices have been rising in North Cyprus bringing the property market there to the attention of property investors all over the world. In one year alone following the opening of the property market to foreign investment the property market saw jumps in values of twenty percent in some quarters.

Property prices continued to rise over the following years, especially during the period where the UN brokered Annan plan was on the table. Although the plan failed - rejected by the Greek Cypriot side but accepted by the Turkish Cypriot north -property prices remained bolstered as the thought of reunification between the two sides went from a possibility to a reality, even if the exact timescale was unknown.

With the election to the Greek Cypriot Presidency of Demetris Christofias in February of this year the reunification of the island once again has taken the front page once again, with both Christofias and his North Cypriot counterpart both pledging their support for a reunification of the island.

The pair share a left-wing world view and both men seem adamant to bring reunification to the island, the prospect of which is bringing investment into properties which would shoot up in value at the moment of reunification. As well as the capital appreciations the reunification of the island would further boost the tourist trade into North Cyprus, as the inability to fly directly into the North - people currently have to either fly into Turkey and change or fly into the republic and drive over the Green Line - would be removed.