Hello everyone,
Hope you have the patience to answer this question. I am looking at moving to Cyprus, honestly for tax reasons, and I know people who moved to Paphos, but rents seem very high there, actually they seem high everywhere. Like 800 EUR for a tiny studio in a decent location in Larnaca or 1200 EUR for a 1 bedroom in Paphos.
Example:
**2 bedroom for 1800 EUR:**
[https://www.bazaraki.com/adv/4565939\_2-bedroom-apartment-to-rent/](https://www.bazaraki.com/adv/4565939_2-bedroom-apartment-to-rent/)
That’s VERY expensive.
Or like this one, which is not even in Paphos:
**54sqm for 750 EUR:**
[https://www.bazaraki.com/adv/4575404\_1-bedroom-apartment-to-rent/](https://www.bazaraki.com/adv/4575404_1-bedroom-apartment-to-rent/)
Are these really the correct rents for Cyprus? Are they taking the piss? These seem like extornionate rents in a country where Google tells me the average wage is 2000 EUR / month.
29 comments
You’re right, they’re ridiculous.
Basically that’s what they can make from Airbnb so they advertise the same rates in case there’s some sucker who pays it long term.
The average wage in Cyprus is definitely not 2k euro/mo.
this is close to Paphos i think its worth the money
[https://www.bazaraki.com/adv/4556992_2-bedroom-apartment-to-rent/](https://www.bazaraki.com/adv/4556992_2-bedroom-apartment-to-rent/)
Now that I watch the price of Paphos I think the cheapest city must be Nicosia or Larnaca
Gentrification
Gentrification
There’s high demand due to the influx of people with money fleeing from the war in Ukraine and from the draft in russia, and the landlords are taking the piss.
Negotiate them down, just cause they ask for it doesn’t mean they’ll get it (see how long it’s been at that price, every month empty is lost money) . It helps if you give a few months up front. Rents are much better if you stay a little oustide the main city
The average wage is nothing. As long as there are enough people willing to pay those crazy prices, it doesn’t matter in the slightest what wages the rest of the people earn.
As far as I can tell, a lot of these are rented by immigrants like myself, and given the crazy number of international companies that moved into Cyprus lately, these rents are not a surprise. Our company alone [relocated about 300 people to Cyprus](https://cyprus-mail.com/2022/09/30/tech-company-moves-to-cyprus-brings-300-people/) last year. Most of them are well-paid software developers, renting those 2-3 bedroom apartments for 1000-2000. So there you go: high demand, low supply, naturally prices will be high.
That second option you’ve found looks great to me, though. Even if it’s not Paphos, it’s pretty close (unlike, say, Peyia) and on the way to Limassol, Nicosia and Larnaca. The price is very reasonable too.
How do you move for tax reasons? How do you tax your income in Cyprus if the source is abroad? Assuming you are not free lancer.
To be honest it’s people like you that raise the rent prices for the locals 😅. Digital nomads, work from home, foreign company payed, self employed. Supply and demand.
There are a significant amount of wealthier people moving to Cyprus (mainly from Europe, Russia, Ukraine and Israel).
I honestly feel sorry for Cypriots. A few years ago a 2 bed apartment was 600-800 euros. Such a vast amount of local cypriots work in the retail hospitality sectors, typically earning between 600 euros and 1200 euros per month.
They are literally being priced out of their own country and it’s dreadful. People in their 30s and 40s living at home (or leaving the country) is becoming very normal.
Every day I wonder how on Earth most Cypriots are getting by. I make a high salary for the average Cypriot and fortunately bought a home a few years ago so haven’t suffered from the exorbitant rental prices in Limassol. Still I struggle to make ends meet with the current prices. How are people surviving?
The government should have spent the last decade incentivizing affordable high density urban housing projects. Instead, all we’ve seen built are luxury multimillion euro apartments and overpriced suburban single-family homes. And somehow now the government and media are acting dumbfounded about the housing crisis.
The property owners are not too worried about the increased rent 😅. Try talking to them. Large numbers give rise to demand, demand is met by supply. I think young Cypriots should talk to their parents as it is the Cypriots who are driving up the rent.
I know Cypriots who increase rent from 1200 to 2600 for 8 months.
Man. Our whole generation will never get to move out.
Yes these are average prices and soon will be cheap prices.
Yes they are entirely taking the piss.
Cyprus is no longer affordable
Don’t come here, for real, unless you make 5k + per month.
The photo in the picture seems quite close to the sea. That was your first mistake. As far as possible from there will be much better.
If you think rent in Paphos is high don’t even look at Limassol or Nicosia.
Currently they are insanely high, unfortunately
its really killing native Cypriot families… lots of wealthy people Russians mostly move to Cyprus and looking for a place to stay but the thing is that they have the money whilst natives dont driving the rent price high since there is a lot of demand with low supply
when you get the electric bill is the time you really feel getting fucked dry
if you are not making 2k net a month forget about renting. I am thinking moving fron CY, basically goverment sold it to the rich elites
The reasons property prices in Cyprus are high is predominantly people from (northern) Europe, Israel and Russia moving here to receive salaries from their countries while living in Cyprus.
Bro unfortunately we as a culture are corrupt, corrupt goverment and corrupt people, quite happy to get one over their neighbour if it means turning a fat profit. It will all come crashing down, it always does, then we start acting all surprised.
We have a corrupt government who over the years have turned a blind eye and actually encouraged rich (a lot of foreign criminals) to invest and build property for the golden passport (watch the Al jazeera under cover documentary, its mind blowing)
Then we had an influx of rich Russians and Isrealies just buying anything with a view and over paying.
Then we had a massive influx of illegal immigrants and when that stands at 6-7% of the population are asylum seekers and illegal immigrants the goverment have to house them, in their infinite wisdom they decided to pay landlords increased rates of rent sometimes twice as much as it was listed for ( it was housing per person) which obviously when these home owners were say offered 1000 euros to house migrants a lot forced people living out who were paying 500 euros by landlords or told either pay 500 euros or leave becsuse the goverment is offering me 1000.
It’s a huge mess but like I said we are a culture of greedy, corrupt morons and truthfully when it comes crashing down we will only have ourselves to blame… again
Side note om corruption we also have a large number of Turkish Cypriot refugee properties and a large number of them are being used by none Greek Cypriots who are also turning a profit.
Sorry to rant but it makes me really angry the state my country is in as like another person said the only people suffering are Cypriots… again.
I’m a Cypriot living in California and I think the cost of living in Cyprus is approaching the cost of living here. I l’ve been away for years but its catching me by surprise. There goes my exit plan.
Like a few already mentioned, it’s mainly because of people like you. Everyone comes here for tax reasons.
The demand far outweighs the supply of housing on the island, especially after the Ukraine-Russia war.
The last time I heard Greek in Limassol was a year ago 🙂
It’s really hard to find anything at a reasonable price now. I came to Cyprus 19 years ago and back then you could rent a nice 2 or 3 bed house in Limassol for as little at 250 CYP, about 430 EUR converted.
Now for that price you would be lucky to find a room in a shared house.
We have been in our current 3 bed home, west Limassol out of town – since 2008 so our rent is still v low for our area (750 EUR) as the landlord didn’t really put it up much over the years. But, if they ever asked us to leave we would really struggle to find anything remotely similar.
We are careful not to bother our landlord with any repairs or complaints and make ourselves available to help them any time (they live upstairs and are elderly) so as not to give them any reason to put our rent up.
But, they know fine well that we pay far less than current market value and the lady of the pair is greedy and listens to gossip and talk in the village about how much she could get from us or from a new tenant if they put us out.
Even out in the villages, away from town it is out of our price range. I’ve looked as far as Anogyra, Pachna, Alektora, Zanakia etc. Just silly money.
Added to this, we have pets so our choice is narrowed even further.
It’s a worry. The only thing to do is to try to earn more money. That’s a whole other thread.
As an entrepreneur looking to relocate too, all I can say is the tax benefits are so significant, what do you expect?
Between my wife and I, we’d be saving at least 75k/yr in tax in the short term, just by moving. And likely millions long term by being able to structure our businesses differently.
It really is the only country around the Med that is worth relocating to, in my view. Quality of life: great. Great food. Lots of sun. Taxes are good. CoL manageable (for us at least).
And we will spend part of the year abroad, in our other properties.
Taxes aside though, I do hope to be able to contribute back to the community in some way.
Let’s look at the supply side too. If you purchased your property recently or planning to than this is what you should consider.
2 br apartment purchase price starts around 200k. in Limassol. ECB keep increasing the interest base rate and the banks are following it with their mortgage charges. Since September last year within a few short months the rate increased from 0 to 2.5%. And now instead of paying 2-3% to the bank the owners and landlords needs to pay 5-6%.
On 200k it is over €1400 per month if you take the mortgage for 20 years plus paying €200 life insurance, then common expenses and fire insurance etc. Possibly you will have payments for remodelling loans since you cannot expect a decent tenant to take an old, crumbling flat for good rental price. So you need to invest in quality.
Don’t forget the Gross rent that you can earn from your property is not your net disposable income. After paying the regular maintenance fees now Gesy and Special Defence Contribution needs to be paid from it and of course it is taxed with your salaried income together so you need to pay the individual income tax on it too.
As you see the owners/landlords are not even covering their expenses and in exchange taking all the risks for long term just to be able to leave some assets to their children in the future.
These are the scenario of recent purchases. If someone inherited or purchased and paid off many years ago then it is a different case.