With the local and global situation being what it is, many property owners remain enclaved within their property not being able to sell - On many occasions, it is not only a matter of price, but that the demand is just not there. So many people are trying to find innovative ideas how to promote a sale and we list some of these, which are interesting mainly on the theoretical side of things, but we record them in order to show the resosfullness of people around the world.

Lottery - You must have seen in the t.v. of a house owner in Austria who wanted to sell it for (say) €800.000. He issued €900.000 lotteries (the extra €100.000 went towards costs) and sold the tickets at €1/each. The tickets were sold immediately and the winner got the house. In this country and as far as we know, in the U.K. you need a license to have a lottery. Usually, in Cyprus, lottery licenses are given to football clubs and charities, not to individuals – So unless you can find a way around the law (is a private lottery legal?) this is not a route that we can suggest.

Private Auctions - This entails placing a rock bottom price (say an apartment which has a “normal” value of €180.000 you place a reserve price of €90.000 (we have one case at the Protaras area) – Participants (bidders) to pay €500 participation fee. It has been tried abroad but with noτ very good results. This participation fee is the main obstacle notwithstanding the 50% discount. This owner stands a chance at least to sell his property, be it at 50% less than its normal price, he also has a chance to get a bid more than the reserve price (plus the participation fee) and one has the chance to get serious bidders since the fee is quite high. This could work if the property is in a competitive situation and there are numerous bidders (e.g. seaside properties etc).

Public Auctions - It has been tried in Cyprus and did not work in a satisfactory manner and this was mainly because the owners would not reduce the price more than 15%-20% of the normal level. Based on the U.K. statistical data auctioned properties should have a reserve price of less than 30%-35% from their normal level. Even with this reduction however recent U.K. sales results through public auctions have a success rate of 35%-45%, as opposed to 70% a year ago. The money is just not there and with the Banks not lending, it makes life very difficult.

Exchange of Property - One route is to exchange one’s property with something else either in Cyprus or abroad. So if someone has a property in the U.K. with which he has difficulty in a sale and similarly a developer/property owner in Cyprus is in the same situation, they may find that the exchange could be an option. This alternative method however requires numerous properties on both sides for the parties to choose in terms of location, type price etc, but, it could work especially for developers who have numerous unsold properties, should they are so interested in exchanging properties from abroad.

Part Ownership - Sell your property in shares (with share titles) and each share to relate to certain period of time – e.g. 40% share to refer to x no of months (similar to time sharing but with less owners and the period relates to continuous months).

Time Share - Selling one’s property as a time share sale is another option, but it needs a lot of effort and money. It is an option however for individual sellers, which one can try it on.

Competition - Sale of property through organized competition (through t.v./press etc). A method used in the U.K. and for which we are not clear how it works. It is a method which by passes the lottery law alternative and it is used in t.v./phone in competitions (not really an option for private sales regarding Cyprus).

As we all know we are going all through difficult times, those in property, as well as the economy in general. A local law firm in U.S. with 2.000 lawyers had a option either to make redundant 400 of its staff or reduce the salaries of all 2.000 by 20% - They voted for the second option – What a mess, but at least as far as Cyprus is concerned, we have not reach this stage as yet (we will have to wait and see)!

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