Many Croatian landlords, typically those along the coast, are more than ready to kick paying tenants out when the tourist season comes knocking in order to make far more money renting their property in the short term to foreign holidaymakers. Owing to such practices, it can be much more difficult than it should be for young families to find a stable place to live. Slavonski Brod plans to make things easier.
Slavonski Brod, a city far from the coast, located in the continental part of Croatia, has decided to adopt a special way to help out its young residents, with a particular focus on young families who need a place to live.
As Novac writes on the 16th of September, 2019, Slavonski Brod has decided to help young families by giving them the possibility of renting land for a house or an apartment at a good price, more specifically of a mere one thousand kuna. And after ten years, they can buy that same plot of land or apartment.
In order to at least attempt to stop, or at best slow down the exodus of young people from Eastern Croatia, the City of Slavonski Brod is offering people the possibility of renting new apartments under the above-mentioned conditions, and the ten-year rent they will have paid will be deducted from the final price of the apartment.
”This is something that isn’t present in our country except in Slavonski Brod,” Mayor Mirko Duspara told HRT.
Local residents of Slavonski Brod are of course very pleased, and they say they are glad that the city realised that it was better to give families land at low prices, instead of merely seeing it stand there empty and unused.
”As you can see, the area is filling up. Everything will probably be filled up. It will be a young settlement, young families, lots of children, lots of young people,” says Antun Lovrić from Slavonski Brod, who will soon celebrate moving in, while the signatories for new contracts are still awaiting construction.
Such help, they say, is more than welcome. Mihaela Ivković from Slavonski Brod explains her situation and just why this initiative is great for her:
”My husband and I were inquiring and looking for land. They were about 15 to 16 thousand euros per plot. That seemed great, it was very convenient to us,” she stated.
This model will likely breathe some much needed life back into not only Slavonski Brod but the entire Eastern Croatian region, which continues to suffer from a brutal brain drain, with citizens leaving in their droves on a regular basis for better lives elsewhere.
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