Renovate-Rent scheme stalls with 86 applications

Economy governmentpropertiesTop News Renovate-Rent scheme stalls with 86 applications Picturised Old Traditional Houses In Nicosia Old Quarters Nicosia Republic Of Cyprus 09 Relevant News Renovate-Rent scheme stalls with 86 applications 17 August 2026 Duty to report abuse rests with the teacher, circular says 17 August 2026 A 16-year-old swaps the beach for the courtroom 17 August 2026 Vassos Vassiliou 17 August 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber The government’s Renovate-Rent scheme has drawn just 86 applications since it was announced in November 2024, against a target of bringing 1,000 residential units back onto the market. Other government housing schemes have started to deliver, but Renovate-Rent has gone nowhere, despite incentives to owners of houses and flats that are generally judged adequate to persuade them to renovate their units and let them. Fifty-four of those applications have been approved, according to the most recent figures held by the Cyprus Land Development Corporation. The scheme also allowed owners to claim for renovations carried out up to a year before it was announced. An initial €25 million was announced for the scheme, and when the first period expired it was renewed and will now run until 2027. Why owners are staying away Why owners are staying away is not a simple question, according to those involved in the sector. On one estimate, owners of older residential units make more money renting them out by the head to foreign nationals, at a set rate to five, ten or more people, than by joining the scheme. Weighing it up, some owners appear to conclude that joining means going through an application process, leaving their buildings idle for months while the work is done, paying for the renovation themselves, and then letting for four years at 70 per cent of the market rent. That reasoning applies mainly to owners with a single unit. The question among those involved is why professionals in the housing sector, who may have the means to renovate their buildings, are not coming forward either. The assessment among them is that those with the financial room, and seeing the increased demand for housing, prefer to build houses or flats, or to renovate older buildings and sell them, taking in more money to reinvest, rather than start applications and wait four years for a lower rent. Some also consider the scheme was held back by its complexity. Many of the conditions imposed were meant to ensure it would not be exploited and that the money would not go to other purposes, but that still leaves it hard for individual owners to reach. The scheme’s call for applications and implementation guide ran to 34 pages, with provisions and references that are hard to follow for an ordinary member of the public without a grounding in the various parameters involved. Some provisions were simplified later. The scheme sets maximum grants of €20,000 for a one-bedroom unit, €30,000 for a two-bedroom unit and €40,000 for a three-bedroom unit. The stock the scheme was meant to reach The scheme was announced after estimates that around 30,000 residential units on the market are more or less abandoned because of their condition, structural, cosmetic and otherwise, and that once renovated they could return to the market and increase supply, in the hope that demand and therefore rents would fall. The last census, in 2021, recorded 492,931 dwellings, of which 354,818 were in normal use and 138,113 were vacant or in temporary use. A number of the vacant dwellings are evidently holiday homes. Urban areas, where demand is higher, accounted for 298,020 dwellings or 60.5 per cent, and rural areas for 194,911 or 39.5 per cent. Nicosia district recorded 163,350 dwellings or 33.1 per cent, Limassol 132,574 or 26.9 per cent, Larnaca 82,274 or 16.7 per cent, Paphos 74,473 or 15.1 per cent and Famagusta 40,260 or 8.2 per cent. Cyprus had a population of 923,381 in 2021, up 9.9 per cent on the 840,407 recorded in the previous Population and Housing Census in 2011. That is an increase of 82,974 people, and all of them had to be housed somewhere. Dwellings rose over the same period by 59,719 or 13.8 per cent. Legislation approved since 2021 has made it easier for companies and third-country nationals to come to Cyprus for specialist jobs, which is assessed to have increased demand for residential units. Pressure has also reportedly been put on Cypriot families and on students to give up houses and flats they rent, so that owners can let them at a higher rent to foreign nationals. 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