HOUSES in Cyprus are getting smaller and smaller in response to rising prices, statistics have shown.

A survey conducted by the statistical department has revealed a 13 per cent decrease in the sizes of houses being built across the island. Government officials put the recent findings down to cost of living and to the fact that property prices on the island have been soaring over the past ten years.

In 2004, the average size of a house was 204 square metres, with that number dropping dramatically to 177 square metres in 2005.

But it is not just down cost prices as one government analyst explained.

“You have to take into consideration that more and more people are opting to build apartment blocks because apartments can sell or rent for a lot of money nowadays, especially the ones in Nicosia.

“Prices are getting more and more expensive and it is logical that we do not have the luxuries of times in the past when we could get large plots of land at low prices. A plot of land in the village of Geri, for example, might well have been half the price only 10 years ago.”

But the escalating property and house prices have not entirely discouraged Cypriots, who, according to the same research, are buying more and more properties each year.

Between the months of January and June, 4,475 housing permits were granted, a 3.4 per cent increase on the same period of the previous year.

Of all the districts in the Cyprus, only the free areas of Famagusta showed an increase in the sizes of houses, while all the other districts fell, with Larnaca in particular slumping from an average of 243 square metres in 2004 to 187 square metres in 2005.