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Post by mambo on Feb 19, 2009 13:38:09 GMT 1
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 23, 2009 15:37:40 GMT 1
In a relatively unregulated property market, such as we currently have in Croatia, property prices are eventually determined by the buyers not the sellers. People will pay what think is a reasonable price for any particular property, if they think it is overpriced they simply will not buy it. At the end of the day, a property is worth what someone is prepared or able to pay for it!
Continuing to directly compare Croatia with other countries outside of the EU is just unrealistic.
Many people go on about property in Croatia being overpriced when compared to A.N.Other country outside of the eastern European region, but from my experience this is the first comparison that buyers make. We see very few buyers comparing Croatia to say the Americas, northern Europe or Spain.
When you compare Croatian property prices against those of say Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia etc prices are still higher, so why have so many people chosen to buy here?
Everyone can read about the "problems" of buying property in a potential country (visa issues, business issues etc) as part of their investigation into that country, so why do so many choose to buy here?
Because when they compare it to these other "local" countries and add it all up, not just the property prices, Croatia is still seen as offering good value.
I fully understand that coastal property prices have increased dramatically in the past few years, just as they did in many other " emerging" countries and that a revaluation is perhaps now overdue.
It is also more apparent now in a recession with fewer buyers looking at overseas property, let alone Croatia.
But there is so much much more to it than just the price of property, per sq M or otherwise.
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Post by galant on Feb 23, 2009 15:48:06 GMT 1
foreign buyers probably think... the coast is absolutely beautiful, not far from western europe, all those beautiful islands, unpolluted, only 4 million post commy croats and a corrupt system and a mentality that noone else on the planet can fathom(apart from a handful of italians) , but it can be that bad... ha ha
supply and demand have very little to do with the price of croatian realestate.
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 23, 2009 15:50:47 GMT 1
On a separate but relevant issue, prices are obviously also effecting domestic buyers as well.
We are often too concerned with foreign buyers driving up the pricers in the real estate market, we tend to forget that Croatians need to buy houses too.
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 23, 2009 15:56:06 GMT 1
Galant,
"supply and demand have very little to do with the price of Croatian real estate."
This will be put to the test over the coming months!
When there is only one potential buyer for every hundred or so properties, the law of supply and demand certainly will apply.
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Post by boris on Feb 24, 2009 12:23:12 GMT 1
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Post by crojoe on Apr 9, 2009 15:06:40 GMT 1
Just around where I live (outskirts of Zagreb) there are 2 large houses I looked at 4 years ago for sale. To this day, they are still unsold. Why, stupid asking price. I've found it's still cheaper to buy the land and build you house then to buy a 10 year old already built one. My other observation is these landlords want to become millionaires overnight, so sit and wait it out, hoping for that glorious day that a stupid buyer comes along. Just after the war here, there where plenty of IFOR troops, diplomats and so forth paying crazy rents. Even today the vast majority of diplomats pay crazy rental fees. Anyway, this in turn makes many landlords think all foreigners will pay up big. Problem is that due to stupid visa laws, Croatia is slowly losing it's foreign community.
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Post by nikh on Apr 10, 2009 13:39:28 GMT 1
One real estate agent i know sold three properties last week owned by Irish who finally agreed that to drop the price was the right thing to do. They still made a nice profit , but guess who did the buying ?? CROATIANS. Seems to me they are the forgotten purchasers and they are, contrary to popular belief , getting mortgages. One glitch that came up was that since the downturn and the Bank fiascos, that the regulations are strict and usage permit is a prerequisite to the lender. The Croatians generally dont care about the usage permit but the lenders do. Imagine that ? locals buying locally at real prices and foreigners still making a nice profit, its happening ! The new real estate regulations are great, finally some real regulation and accountability. Farewell to the Cowboys, we hope !!
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