The current construction boom was good news for housing affordability as more properties on the market would help to rein in rising rent rates, a Central Bank of Malta official said.

Moreover, Maltese landlords were raking in more money which in turn was going into the economy, he pointed out.

Aaron Grech, chief economics officer, made this point during the presentation of the 2017 Central Bank of Malta annual report.

“We are not expecting rents to keep growing at the same rate of recent years,” he said.

Dr Grech commented on housing affordability when replying to questions from the floor following a presentation on the state of the Maltese economy and the outlook till 2020.

He said that from data available there were no signs that the number of Maltese property owners was in decline. Consequently, access to owning a property did not seem to have been affected by the rising rent rates, he said.

As for the near future, Dr Grech said that the increase in housing supply would definitely impact on the rental market.

“We are now seeing a response from the construction sector. Over the last two years we have seen a very strong increase in the number of permits issued. We expect this to have an impact on residential prices,” he said.