A recent shocking KPMG report revealed that the price of property in Malta has rocketed by 59% since 2017. In Gozo, property shot up by 87%. The average price of an apartment is now €414,000 and it’s a far smaller apartment than what you’d have got in 2017.
A young couple in their 20s earning €23,000 per year can only afford 2.2% of properties – and only if both continue to work. If you’re single on a median wage you won’t get a loan to buy any property. One-third of young buyers need a donation from their parents to get onto the property ladder.
During that same period, the median wage of Maltese workers increased by just 3.4% in real terms. No wonder our younger generations are struggling to buy property. Apartments have got smaller, prices have shot up by 59%, while median wages have increased by a meagre 3.4%.
So, in the midst of this catastrophe, what does Labour do to try and improve the situation for young people trying to buy their own apartment? Labour sent Justice and Construction Minister Jonathan Attard to Shanghai, together with a massive delegation of developers and property moguls, to pimp our country to the Chinese.
“Malta is open for business,” Attard told the LPS Shanghai Luxury property exhibition. Come and buy property in Malta, was his key message. He promised “strong long-term value for investors seeking both financial and personal return”. His ministry even issued a statement describing Malta’s construction and property sector “as a driver for improved quality of life”.
Ironically his fellow cabinet minister, Clyde Caruana, was protesting in Żabbar against a massive development in his hometown’s main square that will tower over adjacent buildings and ruin the character of Żabbar forever. Caruana was accompanying the Labour mayor of Żabbar, Jorge Grech, and Momentum in calling out the unsightly five-storey development in the historical heart of Żabbar. Deputy leader Alex Agius Saliba, former Labour ministers Carmelo Abela and Edward Zammit Lewis all condemned the planned development.
That is the hypocrisy of Labour – while Attard brags with Chinese investors that Malta’s development is a driver for improved quality of life, Caruana protests publicly against the negative impact of that Żabbar development on the quality of life of his constituents.
Attard is enticing Chinese investors to buy property in Malta. He led an 80-strong delegation of developers and property tycoons to Shanghai to get the Chinese to buy property in Malta. That only means one thing – the prices of property in Malta will rise even further, even faster, making it even more impossible for young people to buy property.
Accompanying Attard on that delegation was the notorious Sandro Chetcuti, former president of the Malta Development Association. He’s now been appointed chairman of a public-private initiative called the Property Malta Foundation. That foundation has the stated main objective “to position the country as a leading destination of choice for everyone interested in purchasing property in the Mediterranean”.
Chetcuti gained notoriety after Speaker Anġlu Farrugia revealed that he had an office on the fourth floor of Labour’s Mile End headquarters. Chetcuti admitted to collecting donations from his fellow developers to support the Labour Party. He acted as Joseph Muscat’s fixer and primary point of contact for meetings between Muscat and the business community, contributing significantly to Labour’s electoral success. And here he is being given a helping hand by his beloved Labour government, using taxpayers’ money to make more money by selling precious Maltese properties to Chinese investors.
Malta has a property crisis- Kevin Cassar
Sitting on the board of the Malta Property Foundation with Chetcuti is Michael Stivala, Michael Bonello and Matthew Farrugia. In Shanghai, flanked by Attard, Chetcuti told prospective Chinese clients that he was “pleased with the size of the delegation… and proud that new connections are being built to jointly promote our country and the investment opportunities Malta has to offer”.
Malta has a property crisis. Prices are becoming increasingly unaffordable by the day. An influx of Chinese buyers will only make the situation worse. The only beneficiaries of Labour’s business pitch in Shanghai are those very developers who are already making a killing under Labour.
Labour has been aiding and abetting those very developers at the expense of Maltese citizens. Public land has been given away for peanuts, green open areas have been put up for development and illegal developments have been sanctioned despite court rulings. Labour has tried to ram through parliament legislative changes described as a developers’ wish list. The db Group has been allowed to build an additional seven storeys at St George’s Bay. Joseph Portelli has had his 13-storey tower in Xlendi approved.
Labour knows that Malta has a massive crisis – a dwindling birth rate as couples delay having children, some indefinitely, because of the unaffordability of property; others because the massive debt burden they incurred in order to acquire property prevents them from considering having children.
And, yet, Labour pimps the country to Chinese investors, oblivious of the challenges young people face. Labour isn’t really interested in those Maltese citizens struggling to cope. Labour’s priority is appeasing the insatiable greed of Chetcuti and his buddies.
While other countries restrict third-country nationals from purchasing property to protect young people and minimise rising property prices, Labour takes an 80-person delegation to Shanghai to hawk Maltese property to Chinese investors. Canada has just implemented bans on foreign home purchases to improve housing affordability for Canadians. But Malta’s Labour Party, the workers’ party, has thrown those workers under the bus because it prefers protecting property developers. At a conference organised by Malta Property, Robert Abela hit back at affordability concerns, arguing that more people than ever own their homes. For Abela there’s no problem.
Even in Malta’s southern towns, where cheaper properties used to be found, property prices have rocketed by 69% in just a few years. That’s Labour’s heartland. But does Labour care?
Given a choice between aiding property moguls to make more millions and helping young Maltese people to purchase their own property, Labour always chooses its wealthy friends.