Cyprus-Forum.com

[macketterry]

OK AGREED the issue of property sale in the north is wrong and i readily admit that it is immoral, but leaving sentiments aside what factors actually contribute in peoples decisions to choose northern cyprus over souther cyprus to invest their money?
Bear in mind not only Brits buy houses over there, many other nationalities too, (Norwegians, Danish etc etc..)

Perhaps someone who has bought property over there would like to answer?
And guys we are all talking-Lets find out what drives people to buy land in the north, PLEASE DONT ATTACK ANYONE.

djtrax98,

I tried to reply to yor question yesterday but there were server problems.

Anyway, you are right, it's not just Brits who are buying in the north although they are the majority. Many London Cypriots are also buying too, as well as other Europeans.

What attracts people to buy here? Well, depends. Some are investing most of their life savings because they want to retire here. They love the genuine warmth of the people, the scenery, the food, the fact that there is an established expat community here (about 3,000 strong). Of course the low price is a factor but to this group of people it is more the quality of life that they value. Many people are attracted to the old world manners and neighbourliness of the people and to the relative lack of commercialism that cannot be found in other parts of the Med. Most of these people are in their 50's, 60's and 70's. Many of them know the south pretty well and many of them have served in the UK forces during national service and during the EOKA days. They mostly consider the south less friendly, more expensive and less beautiful.

The other group of people investing here are the speculators who see the potential for capital growth and rental income from property investment.

What do people feel about the land ownership issues?

Well, most people reason that they are buying land that was given to a TC refugee as compensation for the equivalent of lost land in the south. Around the Kyrenia area where most people buy is where most of this 'exchange' land is.

Most people cannot see a political solution happening that will involve a mass population return to 1960/63/74 boundaries. The status quo will remain to a major extent.

Also the government here is taking taxes and issuing deeds to foreigners, therefore it is widely believed that they will pick up the tab on any compensation due.

Regarding the propspect of court action: not many people take this seriously as it is clearly a political rather than legal problem.

People do not feel that they are behaving immorally because they know that TCs have lost their lands for good and that regardless of a few foreigners buying (I think that less than 0.1% of the island's land has been sold to foreigners) there would be stalemate here.

Looking forward to all the constructive comments

[djtrax98]

Well rest assured mackettery you will get just that from me!
I am not one to get personal about anything, i just like to understand things thats all. The very fact people are buying up land in the north suggests there is a trend, was just wondering what factors made people decide.
Everything you have said is exactly what everyone i know personally who goes to the north or has been on holiday or owns land there says, the fact that its quiet less commercialised, and friendlier. Its interesting because (and although i will get shot on this site for saying this) to a certain extent i found that out when my boss in ayia napa took me over to the north for a day trip for the first time in my life on my birthday two years ago.
It was weird seeing all the places i have been brought up to recognise through pictures all my life living in southern cyprus i felt a weird sense of fulfillment that i had actually been there and seen these places, even for a brief few hours.
During my time there, i must say that the scenery is stunning, yes it is less commercialised its unspoilt beauty, and when in Kyrenia we went to a restaurant at the harbour which is owned by a man who knew a close relative from before the invasion, a turkish cypriot. They were good friends, and just before my relative died in 1994 he did say to me if you ever get a chance to go and see him, say hello from me.
I remembered this, and so when i arrived in kyrenia i asked for the man, he was frail and sat on a table eating a sweet with his walking stick shaking in his hand. He looked up and i explained who i was and he began to cry when i told him about my relative.
He was the owner of the restaurant, and before long it arose that all the waiters and cooks in the restaurant were all his children and grandchildren, and whats more they all spoke perfect greek having learnt it during growing up in the north in the hope of one day being able to visit their old home in the south.
It wanst long before they were all sitting around our table talking of the past and his antics with my relative, and it was really nice to be in a position where i could visit these places and get the same warm reception that people lived with on a daily basis decades ago.
In my entire life in Cyprus i havent experienced anything like that EVER.
Its a memory that i will carry with me forever, and when the time is right for me i will return to say hello again, if he is still alive....
My point after all this story telling, is that despite what has happened in the past, people still bear the wounds of history, but want to move forward. These people i visited werent attillas, they werent nazis and they certainly were not murderers. They were a Turkish Cypriot family who has stuck to their roots fast, and maintained their ways of life around what has happened. After the invasion, he could have done what many others did and brought his family up in the turkish way to be muslims and speak nothing but turkish. He didnt. He brought them up speaking Greek as a first language turkish as a second language.
This is what we must do. We must bury the past, and look forward to the future with hope and optimism, we must stop laying blame and screaming hell to the north, there is no denying they are there it is reality. In this attitude lies hope for a solution on BOTH SIDES so our refugees can go to their homes and the refugees from the north can return to theirs here.
Only then will this old man be able to return to his home he had just finished building in Larnaca when he ran for his life in 1974 to die in peace in the four walls he built himself over thirty years ago with his own bare hands but never lived in.

[NeverSayGoodbye]

A huge mistake was building a tourist industry aiming at the British instead for going for other markets as Germany,France even asian countries.
Instead of building museums we were building Pubs and offering english breakfast for 1.50.Indeed we have comercialise this island and the same thing will happen in the occupied areas.The north is more friendly cause they see Dollars in foreingners something the greeks have realized doesnt make you happy.But eventually its the low prices that are attracting people to buy property in the north.

[macketterry]

A very touching story, djtrax98, and one that shines a light on the human cost of this whole Cyprus fiasco.

I know a friend whose children go to a small school where the headteacher is English and the other teacher is TC but they speak to eachother in Greek! The English lady has been in Kyrenia since 1962 and the TC teacher is better in Greek than in Turkish!

I have to say that, although I have heard a few anti-Greek comments here in the north, I have NEVER come across the kind of venom we read on a daily basis in this forum. I do believe that people in the north have finally come to terms with the past unlike their cousins in the south.

Regarding your old man and his desire to return to his old home: my experience of most TCs here is that they have a strong emotional attachment to their original villages but none so far has told me that they would want to go back and start a new life there.

[macketterry]

A huge mistake was building a tourist industry aiming at the British instead for going for other markets as Germany,France even asian countries.
Instead of building museums we were building Pubs and offering english breakfast for 1.50.Indeed we have comercialise this island and the same thing will happen in the occupied areas.The north is more friendly cause they see Dollars in foreingners something the greeks have realized doesnt make you happy.But eventually its the low prices that are attracting people to buy property in the north.

Have you been to Alanya or Antalya in southern Turkey? It's swarming with Germans, Russians, Dutch. It looks even uglier than some parts of south Cyprus. Very few Brits there, so seems that your point that by changing the nationality you change the building style is incorrect.

The north actually is aiming at the 50+ tourist market who like gentle bike rides, mountain walks etc. Whereas you have concentrated on the all-you-can-drink-for-a-fiver market. Sometimes less is more.

[djtrax98]

mackettery wrote:

Regarding your old man and his desire to return to his old home: my experience of most TCs here is that they have a strong emotional attachment to their original villages but none so far has told me that they would want to go back and start a new life there.

I agree with your post entirely my friend.Until i started using this forum i never realised how bitter and resentful my fellow countrymen could possibly be.
I am shocked disgusted and dissapointed that even after writing the things they do on here, they will all still get up and go to church to pray on a Sunday morning, it really is hypocrisy to call oneself a Christian and have no tolerance of others because of their faith or things that have happened in the past. In saying that it would be hypocrisy if the Cyprus Orthodox church didnt support or encourage the kind of views we see being displayed in this forum.So the fact it does, i guess makes it all ok. I mean if you want to eat a burger you go to burger king or macdonalds dont you?!?!?!?!
I am pleased to see that the administrator is now taking heed of what is happening in this forum, i believe he has been monitoring whats being said in here, perhaps this will curb the amount of racial hatred which is being thrown from pillar to post by a few minority cretins.
As for the old man in my story, he didnt want to move back to his old home as his home is now Kyrenia, he merely stated that he would want to die in his original home looking around the walls that he built with his own bare hands, thats all.
I am hoping that one day people like you i and various others on here who promote peace who dont share hatred towards one another will be able to discuss this matter somewhere where utter ignorance doesnt dominate the forum. Because rest assured, as long as these pineapple heads roam in and out of these threads we will forever be locked in slanging matches with them.
I must say that as a fellow Brit i do feel sorry for you being in the firing line what is more annoying is that you are two of the main primary targets rolled into one for the fanatics. You are British and you live in the North!Its just a shame that people dont realise the venom they spew can seriously affect people. I know it has done me, but i shant bother with these ignorants any longer. I have my views which differ from theirs and that will be the logical end to this debate, agreed????

[macketterry]

djtrax98, you are a gent.

Well done for standing your ground with the people who try to stifle debate and crush dissent - dare I call them fascists?

The way I get over the abuse is to remind myself that the people hurling it would most probably never utter a word to me like this if we were face-to-face.
Funny thing is, regarding the Brit-bashing, is that I went to school with Cypriots and have had Cypriot friends in the UK but I can't remember ever any of us dwelling on our Britishness or Greekness or Turkishness -must be something in the water here that turns people into rabid nationalists!

You are right, this land topic is suited for grown ups in secure locations!

More power to you!

[Piratis]

Why are rapists, murderers and all the other criminals jailed?

If those people were not hiding behind the occupation troops to exploit our properties they would be in the same place as the rest of the criminals.

Fact 1: In Cyprus there is only one legal state.
Fact 2: This legal state is the only authority to have laws on this island
Fact 3: The people that "buy" stolen properties are grossly violating the law

Therefore why should any respect be shown to these criminals? Personally I do not respect at all these human worthless scum. They have nothing to do with Cyprus apart from the fact that they came here to exploit the properties that were stolen from us.

Would you show respect to Hitler?
Would you show respect to rapists of that 14 year old that happened some days in the occupied areas?
Would you show any respect to criminals that not only do not regret for their crimes but insist on committing them?

I show respect to those that show respect to me and to the laws. If those people show such disrespect on us by exploiting our properties against our will then they certainly do not deserve our respect.

Cypriots that go to the UK respect the laws there. If they don't they pay the penalty according to the laws of UK. If you want to be respected you should do the same in Cyprus. If you show disrespect to us and to our laws then you will naturally receive what you deserve for us, which certainly is not respect.

Since when is demanding all people, including foreigners, to respect the laws of your country called nationalism?

[pumpernickle]

agreed djmax and macketterry, good show.

is refreshing to see normal sensible comments from sensible people.

am slightly alarmed by the highly politicised and vociferous behaviour of one of the moderators on this site who sees it as his job to rent forth his vitriol and bias whenever he gets the chance.

shame really. but then beggars cant be choosers. must be quite hard to find people to work on a website, its arduous stuff for little reward. So if your reward is a bit of a soap box for demented views that no-one else wants to hear in real life, then there's the window of opportunity.

It's, as they say in blighty, a funny, funny old world.

a funny old world indeed.

[djtrax98]

Am not so sure about these people macketterry they posess a lot of hate BIN LADEN would have a field day in New York with their talents and attitude to others..
Neways i am off in search of intelligent conversation. My journey back through time to the homo neanderthalensis era in lower palaeolithic has taught me many things about how cavemen live and think.
Me? i prefer the 21st century. So i will leave them all behind to pick their noses and eat their bogies, rip hairs out of their chests and wipe their butts with fig leaves...
Macketttery i will most probably chat to you around this forum at any one point. I will check this thread again, so speak soon mate.
All the best djtrax98