As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 4th of January, 2020, it would seem that the Croatian property prices and thus the country’s real estate market is finally returning to pre-crisis levels, at least when it comes to asking prices, and the volume and the number of transactions are also accelerating, according to a report from Vecernji list.
The Institute of Economics in Zagreb, together with the competent ministry of construction, published the second edition of the Croatian Real Estate Market Review for 2018, which shows that in 2018, there were 104,000 real estate purchases in Croatia and the value of real estate sold stood at a massive 32 billion kuna, or 8.4 percent of Croatia’s GDP, according to the aforementioned newspaper.
Agricultural land was dominated by almost 40,000 transactions, but the value of the land actually sold has fallen from the previous year to around 1.6 billion kuna in total. Most of the money was spent in the housing fund – about 13 billion kuna, construction land accounted for about six billion kuna, and family homes accounted for about 5.7 billion kuna. In the year under review, about four thousand more homes were sold – just over 11 thousand houses changed owners.
The analysis of the sales contracts does not confirm that there has been a particularly dramatic increase in Croatian property prices, but that impression can definitely be obtained according to the required real estate prices.
For example, in Zagreb, the median price of apartments sold in 2018 was 4.9 percent higher than in 2017, amounting to 9459 kuna per square metre. The median price means that half of the just over 8,000 apartments sold went below that price and the other half was more expensive.
When it comes to other parts of Croatia, Split-Dalmatia County had the largest price spike in flats – about eight percent with a median price of per square metre costing 11,669 kuna, and in Istria – 6.7 percent – but a median price of 8722 kuna per square metre. In 2018, when compared to 2017, prices fell in eleven counties, most notably in Koprivnica-Krizevci, by 17 percent (4981 kuna), Lika-Senj (5469 kuna) and Požega-Slavonia by 11 percent, where you’d pay 3636 kuna per square metre in an apartment.
Lower prices for apartments sold have also been recorded in Dubrovnik-Neretva County, otherwise the Croatian record holder when it comes to cost, and in 2018, in Croatia’s southernmost county, 520 apartments were sold, which marked a decreased of about 5 percent to 12,158 kuna per square metre.
With regard to family homes, significantly higher prices were achieved in cities and municipalities in the Adriatic region of Croatia, and the highest median house prices are of course in Dubrovnik.
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