News that the Affordable Housing Minister Roderick Galdes had bought a penthouse and garage for a seemingly cut-price sum of €140,000 prompted immediate responses from both Galdes himself and Prime Minister Robert Abela, both arguing that the sum was in line with market prices at the time the property was “reserved”.
“You can’t compare Gozo property prices in 2021 with prices today,” Galdes said in his first comments after the story was recently published.
Abela adopted a similar stance when asked about the matter, telling Times of Malta “aside from the political rhetoric, the correct exercise would be to evaluate prices at the time of the pandemic, not today”.
However, such an exercise appears to confirm that Galdes received a particularly good deal on his property.
What did Galdes buy?
According to the sale’s contract, Galdes and his wife bought a “shell form duplex penthouse […] with its overlying airspace without height limitation,” at the Ħal Gelmus complex in Victoria, together with a shell garage in the same block.
The penthouse is relatively small, with Abela saying it measures 86 square metres. However, despite its size, it does come with perks.
According to the development’s promotional blurb, the penthouses house “landscaped roof areas with private pools,” while properties enjoy access to a “500 sqm private communal pool area as well as its own 1,129 sqm of landscaped public pedestrian internal road”.
When did he buy it?
Galdes bought the property in January 2025, after having signed a promise of sale in early 2024.
However, he argued that he had reserved the property years earlier, in 2021, paying a €5,000 fee to freeze the price at the time of his reservation.
This is why, Galdes said, comparing “the price of a reserved property four years ago with current prices, especially when speaking of a finished property, is wrong and creates a distorted picture”.
How much did property in Gozo cost in 2021?
Estimating the market value of Galdes’ penthouse and garage in 2021 is tricky, but research carried out at the time can help.
In June 2021, consultancy firm EY published a report into trends in the property market so far that year. Among other things, it scoured through property listings to calculate the average price per square metre for different types of properties and across different regions.
A penthouse in Gozo cost an average of €1,851 per square metre in early 2021, EY reported. By the end of the same year, this had inched upwards to €1,874 per square metre.
This would mean that a penthouse the size of Galdes’, at 86 square metres, would typically have fetched an asking price of €160,000 in 2021, around €20,000 more than Galdes ultimately paid.
There are some caveats to EY’s figure.
For a start, it bundles together properties that are being sold on plan or in shell form with finished properties, which are likely to be more expensive. The figure also reflects asking prices, not necessarily the price at which properties were ultimately sold.
However, it also does not distinguish between properties offering amenities such as a communal pool and landscaped grounds, as in the case of Ħal Gelmus, with penthouses in poorer quality blocks.
And, crucially, the €160,000 figure suggested by the EY reports does not include a garage.
What do property listings at the time show?
A review of several property listings posted online and on Times of Malta’s classifieds section throughout 2021 would seem to back up EY’s figures.
Properties of a similar size to Galdes’ appear to fetch an asking price similar to what he ultimately paid, but do not include a garage.
One listing, for an 82sqm two-bedroom shell penthouse in Victoria’s Campus Point development, shows the property listed for sale at €135,000. An even smaller, one-bedroom 77sqm penthouse is listed at €110,000. However, a garage at the development would bump the price up by another €20,000 at least, the listing shows.
Another similarly-sized shell penthouse in Victoria was listed at €140,000 in May 2021 but, again, no garage.
Meanwhile, shell penthouses with access to a communal pool are much pricier.
A May 2021 listing for a three-bedroom penthouse in Xewkija with the use of a communal pool shows it for sale at €250,000, with the option of a garage for a further €27,000.
Another penthouse with access to a shared pool in the same village, listed in November, is offered at €218,000, together with a €7,000 fee for the lift. A garage in the same block would set you back another €21,000.
Several other listings show similar, and often more expensive, prices. We were unable to find any listings for a penthouse and garage comparable to those purchased by Galdes, listed at a similar price to what he ultimately paid.
Listings for properties at the Ħal Gelmus complex itself, name a starting price of €160,000 for its cheapest apartment in 2023.
Others who have attempted appear to have reached a similar conclusion.
One citizen, Kyle Brincat, took to AI to compare the price Galdes paid to listings across 34 datasets, before posting his findings on Facebook group Are You Being Served?
When contacted, Brincat explained how he used an AI bot to scrape property listings for similar properties in Gozo.
Even when accounting for factors such as inflation, Brincat said the price Galdes paid “remains incongruent with market norms”.
Verdict
Research into property prices in 2021 suggests that a penthouse in Gozo of a similar size to Galdes’ would likely have fetched an asking price of around €160,000, without a garage.
Several property listings throughout 2021 advertising shell penthouses across Gozo would seem to confirm this.
Listings for shell penthouses with amenities similar to those of the Ħal Gelmus complex fetched a significantly higher asking price.
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Roderick Galdes is under scrutiny for the €140,000 purchase of a penthouse and garage in Gozo. File photo: Chris Sant Fournier
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Originally published here.
