The Maltese central bank’s quarterly residential property price index dropped -9.9% on a year earlier with almost half of this fall, some 4.4%, occurring in the first quarter.

At the end of March it was around 11% below the peak levels reached in the middle of 2007. The bank said lower asking prices were observed in seven of the eight property categories surveyed by its property price index which is based on advertised residential property prices in newspapers sampled each month.

Apartments in shell form and houses of character saw the steepest decline with prices plummeting by -20.4% and -16.2% respectively. Finished flats, the most popular property for sale in Malta, saw prices fall -10.8% while townhouse dropped -11.8%, maisonettes in shell form were down -5% and maisonettes in finished form fell -4.4%. The one category that saw an improvement was terraced houses where prices increased by +4.1%.