I am a little hesitant about writing this blog, I have wanted to for some time but I did not want to step on anyone toes.  Now I just want to get it off my chest!  The main reason I have hesitated for a long time is the toes I will be stepping on can influence my business possibly.  I am talking about the builders in Cyprus.  Since I own a marketing company and property is a big portion of my business, I could end up jeopordizing opportunities in the future.

Here is the story, I will tell only of my own personal experience with our builder, but as you go around and meet other home owners and hear their stories I realize I am not alone.  I knew that since there are 78 homes in my developement and many of the owners have long standing isses. DNP built our development and they are not the only builders that operates in this fashion.  We were scheduled to move to Cyprus in June 2005,  but in May we found out a member of my family was very ill and postponed our plans luckily. Our house was suppose to be finished that year but when we arrived one year later the home was still incomplete.  We were not able to move in until September 2006, over a year later and that was just the begining.

We discovered that because the builder had not aquired the right permits, we are getting electricity from a temporary generator using a gasoline engine.  Not only does it overload all the time and turn off the circuit breakers, they also have been completely out of order making everyone live without any electricity until they can bring one from limassol to fix it. Power outages are still a weekly accurance if not daily or hourly at times. If that was it, I might not feel so bad.  I would still be angry though because of the inexcusable behaviour of the people responsible and their replies to any questions or should I say the lack of response.  The thing that annoys me the most is that we are basically living on a construction site.  There is always dirt flying in the air, where is supposed to be pavements are just rocks and mud that can't be used.  The "green area" (what I live next to) is anything but green and every time a car drives by it picks up enough dust to coat everything in the area, so we constantly breath dust.  To top it all off DNP is starting to build apartments right next to our project which makes me wonder why they would start a new project next to us without finishing this one. I was under the assumption that there must be a shortage in money or workers and that is why things are so slow, but all the sudden there are apartments going up with lots of workers and lots of money needed. They could have completed this project with the same resources and had better word of mouth spreading than what is being said now. I don't want to classify all builders in the same category and I am sure that there are some builders that pride themselves on quality work and trust but as I learn more and more, I realize that the problems I am having are a common thing.

To finish on a positive note if you want to buy a home in Cyprus there are lots of resale homes out there.  And the positives of resales are that the home is finished and you can see exactly what you are getting. You can talk with the current residents and neighbors whereas buying off plan you are all in the same boat not knowing what you will get and when! Owners of resales usually upgrade things such as doorknobs, faucets, do custom paint and add extras such as as air conditioners, pergolas, fences and you can get a mature garden with fruit trees - ready to pick and eat! How much better than that can it get???