St Paul’s Bay tops real estate sales charts for four years running

St Paul’s Bay has continued to dominate the local residential property market, with monthly figures indicating that the northern town has ranked top for final deeds of sale and promise of sale agreements for four years.

This comes after the National Statistics Office (NSO) recently released its residential property transactions update for March 2024, reporting a total of 1,177 promise of sale agreements across Malta and Gozo during that particular month. This represents a 0.8 per cent drop over the same period in 2023.

Despite the Northern Harbour district recording the most promise of sale agreements with 349, St Paul’s Bay, classified in the Northern district, still ranked first in the number of agreements for the month at 109. The locality’s figure accounts for 48.9 per cent of the district’s total, and 9.3 per cent of the overall total.

To put this into context, Birkirkara – which includes Fleur-de-Lys and Swatar – was second for promise of sale agreements for March 2024 with 67, while Marsaskala was third with 54. Birgu, Lija and Mtarfa did not have any new promise of sales for that month.

For final deeds of sale, there was a total of 1,021 in Malta during March 2024, a decrease of 2.7 per cent from the same month in 2023. St Paul’s Bay once against ranked first last month with 106, while Birkirkara (56) and Mellieħa (40) came in second and third, respectively.

St Paul’s Bay has consistently been the locality with the most promise of sale agreements every month for more than four years, equivalent to 50 months.

Over the last years, St Paul’s Bay has emerged as Malta’s largest town, as well as its most multicultural. As of September 2023, it was home to 36,000 people, 60 per cent of whom are foreign.

It is important to note that statistics for St Paul’s Bay also include figures from Buġibba, Burmarrad, and Qawra, localities that have been subject to extensive development over recent years.

The last time St Paul’s Bay was beaten by other localities was back in February 2020, when both Mellieħa and Qormi registered more promise of sale agreements at 64 and 43, respectively. In that month, St Paul’s Bay had registered 41.

Since that point, the peak month for promise of sale agreements for the locality was December 2021, when it recorded a staggering 216 agreements. This was almost double the second-highest figure for that particular month, which was Birkirkara with 113.

Taking a closer look at historical data, St Paul’s Bay has also come out on top in terms of final deeds of sale for a number of years, with the last time that the locality did not claim top spot being back in November 2019. In that month, St Paul’s Bay recorded 63 final deeds of sale, while Mosta had 71.

The peak month in terms of final deeds of sale was October 2022, when St Paul’s Bay registered 129.

During the first quarter of 2024, there were a total of 3,502 promise of sale agreements, representing an annual increase of 12.2 per cent. On the other hand, there were 3,153 final deeds of sale, an increase from the same period last year of 1.7 per cent. The value of the deeds registered during this period rose by 2.4 per cent, amounting to a total of €832.1 million.