In this turbulent economy, there are many issues for the average person to worry about. Your savings are dwindling as you watch your stocks, investments and banks struggling to stay afloat. Many people are afraid of what their finances will look like at the end of this mess. Those who bought overpriced property at the height of the market will suffer unless they have the resources to hold on to these properties for a long, long time. There will be others that will benefit from this downturn however. Many people watched property prices climb at such a fast pace that their dreams of owning a home disappeared. Now that property prices are dropping there are bargains to be had and other benefits to the slow down in buying and building.

For many people in Cyprus, the downfall of the housing market can be catastrophic. Many developers have laid off many employees, scaled down activities and even closed down offices in order to cut down on expenses and overhead. Instead of quickly throwing up apartment complexes and housing developments without the proper planning or permits, builders will now have more time on their hand and will perhaps (hopefully) be more thoughtful in their design, architecture and planning. A case in point is a development in Mandria, Paphos that was on a temporary generator for years because the proper procedures were not followed. The home owners were inconvenienced all the time and suffered innumerable problems such as appliances blowing up from the constant on/off/on/off of the electricity. The developer should never have been allowed to begin building in the first place and now that buyers are few and far between I doubt that developers will be in such a rush to build and sell sub-par homes without proper roads, water and electricity supply. All issues with this development have now been resolved but it was a long time coming with a lot of needless aggravation.

Buyers now have a lot of choices and since there are so many unsold properties sellers are giving more incentives to buy and dropping prices. Customer service and attention to detail is sure to be improved upon. In order to bring in buyers and keep them developers will have to realize that they need to do a superb job, follow proper procedures and ensure efficiency and competence from all parties involved in selling, building and legalities.

Resales are also a great bargain now as those in financial trouble are trying to sell off their holiday homes. Since, many people can not afford holidays now the properties seem worthless to the owners as they are not flying out anymore and renting them out won't pay off either as there are not enough holiday makers to fill them at the moment. Resale homes can be very easy to buy as you see what you are getting because someone else did all the groundwork and oversight of the build. If the home has title deeds then it is even easier to complete the transaction.

Lastly, the slow down of building provides us a "greener" environment. There is less noise pollution, less waste, less concrete and paint debris. Hopefully, builders will realize Cyprus's natural, rugged beauty and try to maintain it rather than fill up every open area with a giant concrete block. Who wants to live in or holiday in a concrete jungle even if it is on an island next to the sea!? The halting of nearly all building was just in time to preserve the beauty of the island in my opinion.