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Post by valiant on Dec 1, 2006 18:12:31 GMT 1
bear 42, thats a good question to put to psanader,. hed probably start going on about supply and demand haha. but what about the builders lobby? and if sanaders working for his people...shouldnt relestate be at affordable prices for croats in their own country. something should be done,,and i have a number of sollutions but they ofcourse would be thrown into thw wind by a corrupt scum government , such as the one we have, did have and looks like ....will always have, here in croatia.
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Post by Madgolfer on Dec 17, 2006 14:45:14 GMT 1
It should be good if the real estate agents would finally start doing the job and accept the responsibility to protect the market by stabilizing the market and not just sit there to collect a fee. This way they are only interested in the highest price and not in market development in the long run. For our part Mambo we do ! We turn down nearly as many properties as we accept, mainly due to the unrealistic prices being asked by the sellers. Some of our properties are advertised on other websites at MUCH higher prices and these "Croatian" agents also charge higher commissions. Much like Charles and Carol, we did not come here to make either a fortune or a quick buck. We are trying to establish a market where the culture of a genuine real estate industry does not yet exist. Give it time and try not to tarnish everyone with the same brush !
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Post by mark2 on Dec 17, 2006 16:50:11 GMT 1
LET'S FACE IT.... covering yourself in petrol and lighting the zippo is easier (and less stressfull) than selling real estate in Croatia, but to some degree we are pioneers, I have no doubt that the industry will regulate at some point, but I believe that it will not happen by paying your 1000 euros a year to some "European Estate Agency Federation" just so you can display a logo, a little like the Master Craftsmens Guild in the UK.
The regulation of the real estate industry lies flatly with the government. It is up to them to provide the laws, the legal commission rates etc.
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Post by mambo on Dec 17, 2006 21:04:29 GMT 1
Today I was walking with the dog and just for fun I decided to take a look at the windows of a lot of 'real estate agents' (in Porec that is). Perhaps I am sort of 'picky', but from what I saw there I would immediately draw the conclusion not to buy a house from any of those offices.
In almost all cases the pictures of the houses/apartments for sale were worn out, yellow, colours fainted, edges curled up. One office simply left the offer outside in the rain, beautiful sight ! Some offices displayed the date when the apartment was first offered, one went back to 2003 !!! and many were of 2004 and 2005. I hope the window was not up to date, because otherwise the market is real bad. If you cannot sell a house in 2 years somewhere you must realize that something is wrong.
The prices on the other hand are still out of this world, I wonder how long they can keep this up.
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Post by Carol on Dec 17, 2006 21:04:43 GMT 1
the problem is that legislation is one thing, but without enforcement its a waste of time. teh goog guys will do what is morally right anyway and the bad will just flout the law. Croatia has to resolve the corruption issues for everyone to be able to move forward.
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Post by ludilousa on Dec 18, 2006 21:23:32 GMT 1
they can keep this up because most of the properties for sale in croatia are not "investment properties". these houses have been lived in or are currently being lived in. The people selling them have a roof over their head and don't feel the need to sell this year if they can't get the asking price. is it that hard for you guys to figure it out? there may be alot of poor croatians but most of them live better than people that i know in america, including myself. they have a roof over their head, even if they live with their extended families, someone to take care of their children, fresh homecooked meals all day everyday, and a rich social life. how many of you who make six figures a year have that? these prices have nothing to do with the "market". its different game over there entirely. i think alot of people selling in croatia can afford to wait 5-10 years to get what they are asking because it may be the one major windfall of their lifetimes. i'm not an agent or an expert...but i know alot of croatians and travel back and forth from the US. its funny to check back in here from time to time and listen to you guys. ***if you wanted to make a lucrative property investment in croatia you should have bought 10 years ago right after the war*** too late now Today I was walking with the dog and just for fun I decided to take a look at the windows of a lot of 'real estate agents' (in Porec that is). Perhaps I am sort of 'picky', but from what I saw there I would immediately draw the conclusion not to buy a house from any of those offices. In almost all cases the pictures of the houses/apartments for sale were worn out, yellow, colours fainted, edges curled up. One office simply left the offer outside in the rain, beautiful sight ! Some offices displayed the date when the apartment was first offered, one went back to 2003 !!! and many were of 2004 and 2005. I hope the window was not up to date, because otherwise the market is real bad. If you cannot sell a house in 2 years somewhere you must realize that something is wrong. The prices on the other hand are still out of this world, I wonder how long they can keep this up.
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Post by Ribaric on Dec 18, 2006 23:21:27 GMT 1
I think you are missing the point lou.
Nobody is criticising anyone, this is not an attack on the locals by a band of foreigners. You have no need to defend anyone.
The whole world negotiates about everything and market forces usually win in the end. People here want to sell and they need to move for all the usual reasons, they are no different from anyone else. The only thing different here is that properties which should sell - good for both seller and buyer - are not being sold for not-very-good reasons. That's all there is to it.
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Post by mambo on Dec 18, 2006 23:38:31 GMT 1
Ludilousa,
I agree with you completely when it concerns old houses, but...................where it concerns new houses and apartments it is a different ball game.
80 % of what is sold here is new stuff, just finished, built very cheap, heavily overpriced.
If you leave a house like this 3 years on the market it does cost you a mortgage every month, you will need to do maintenance, you will need to do something about the garden etc. So when you build new houses and apartments the thing that you should be looking for is selling fast. Better take 10,000 or 20,000 less and sell it immediately then sit around and wait for a few years, also paying losing that same amount of money, but in a different way.
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Post by ludilousa on Dec 19, 2006 4:55:47 GMT 1
point taken. i did not realize there was that much new building occuring.
still, i find it hard to believe that croatians are that dumb, from years hidden behind the iron curtain, to use simple logic.
i know there are those people but how can it be that prevalent as you guys make it out to be?
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Post by Carol on Dec 19, 2006 9:45:20 GMT 1
they are not dumb: they are just not selling unless they get enough money from it to fund whichever project they have in mind. Fair enough, i think. Only problem is when they waste everyone's time by putting it on the market.
However one area where they are "dumb" is their misconceptions about how rich westeners are. I've had conversations where otherwise eductaed intelligent people have told me that in Britain people don't think €100,000 is much money (and therefore they won't notice if they pay €100k too much). on the contrary, very few people in Britain have £60,000 sitting around in their bank accounts.
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Post by mambo on Dec 19, 2006 17:38:17 GMT 1
I agree, I hear the same statement from the locals here as well. The general belief is that all foreigners are filthy rich and 100 euro per night for an apartment is peanuts for a Westerner.
They simply cannot understand that the economy in Europe is not doing well, that people don't earn an average of 10,000 euro per month and that a normal family cannot spend 2000 euro on rent for an apartment for 2 or 3 weeks of holiday.
They have exactly the same idea where it concerns how much money people can and want to spend on a second home/apartment. When you tell them that the prices here in Croatia are higher than what people have to pay for equivalent houses/apartments in the Western part of Holland they simply reply: but we have the sun and the sea.
In my view we are dealing here with farmers and locals, of which most have never been outside of Croatia or into the real world. They live in a fantasy world completely created by themselves, by the 'novellas' on television and not in the last place by the idea that the spending behavior of tourists is the same at home as it is here.
Ah well, we can discuss about it, but it is not going to change anything. These people have this in their mind and they are not changing.
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Post by ludilousa on Dec 19, 2006 18:10:29 GMT 1
you are right about that. croatians think everyone from america must be rich.
i've even had some people tell me "how much better i had it" and these people knew nothing about me or my situation.
oh well.
reality will sink in sooner or later. maybe by 2015 along with the EU
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Post by darcy on Dec 19, 2006 22:43:34 GMT 1
You have to distinguish between different type of people - on the coast and in small villages or towns you are dealing with very lucky (for the rest of Croatia) and not very educated people (for the rest of Croatia) - whoever was successful went to the big cities, abroad or overseas, and that was the process that lasts for last 2 centuries.
In their nature they sit and wait (for the ship full of gold to arrive in their port, as someone said), but you have to understand - there is very little going on out of the busy summer months, that is part of the mentality. These people live nice easygoing life, with no credit cards, loans or mortgages.
They are usually not forced to sell (s they do not have loans), I do not think they know what they would do with the money, property has certain emotional and social value, so they are just fishing on the market and I respect that right.
What I do not respect are the real estate agents that are selling such property and wasting time (except the vendor's, that is a winter months pastime for them).
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Post by Carol on Dec 19, 2006 23:11:53 GMT 1
sorry darcy, but you are talking complete rubbish. You are just so wrong its not worth spelling it out.
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Post by mambo on Dec 20, 2006 1:46:21 GMT 1
Darcy,
You are talking about people who sell the family home, but nowadays we have loads and loads of Croatians who start building apartments, houses, villa's etc on their land or on newly bought land. They use their paid off house as collateral, quickly build some cheap places and then want to sell it with 300 to 400 % profit. They refuse to accept 100 % profit for this is seen as a loss. This way you will find houses on the market for 2 or 3 years and in the mean time they still need to pay interest on the loan etc.
That is the kind of people you are mostly dealing with. The ones that are selling the family home is a completely different category.
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