The Central Bank said today that average prices of residential properties fell at an annual rate of 2.2% in the last quarter of 2012, following a drop of 1.2% in the previous quarter.

On the other hand, over the year as a whole, average property prices increased by 0.5%, as a rise in prices in the first half of the year offset the declining trend in subsequent quarters. This marginal increase in the index was well below the increases recorded in the previous two years.

Quoting its own property price index, the Bank said that the drop in the fourth quarter reflected diverging movements in the prices of different segments of residential properties.

Whereas prices for maisonettes and terraced houses increased, those for apartments and other properties including town houses, houses of character and villas, dropped.

In the last quarter of last year, asking prices for apartments, which made just over half of the properties surveys, saw an annual drop of 3.2 per cent, a larger decline than in the previous quarter.