Final deeds of sale keep lagging behind promise of sale agreements

The inverse trend of higher promise of sale agreements and fewer final deeds of sale has continued, signalling that bottlenecks related to setting bank appointments and processing loans have persisted.

Final deeds of sale decreased by 13.7 per cent to 1,080 in May 2023 when compared to the previous year. The drop was coupled with a decline in over value of the deeds, which contracted by eight per cent to €252.5 million. On a per capita basis, the average value of a final deed of sale is roughly €234,000, 10 per cent higher on a year-on-year basis.

Individual buyers were involved in 90.6 per cent of the total number of deeds sale, with companies being responsible for the rest. The highest number of final deeds of sale were recorded in the Northern Harbour Region and the Northern Region, registering a total of 317 and 192 deeds respectively, almost half of the total.

Meanwhile the number of promises of sale agreements increased by 15.9 per cent year-on-year, with a total of 1,304 registered. Individual potential buyers accounted for 92.7 per cent of the total, while the rest involved companies.

The largest number of promise of sale agreements were registered St.Paul’s Bay (124), Sliema (54), Birkirkara (50) and Marsascala (49). The sum of agreements recorded in these localities account for 21.2 per cent of the total number registered during the month.

This newsroom recently revealed that the inverse relationship between the number of promise of sale agreements and final deeds of sale does not necessarily reflect a decline in activity in the real estate market, nor that it could lead to property prices declining.

Industry stakeholders pointed out there’s a growing number of high-value properties being sold, and fewer of them are being sold on plan.

Furthermore, there are banking-related issues, since they are taking longer to process loans, and setting an appointment with them is becoming challenging.

However, the overall sentiment was that the real estate market is doing quite well.