For months now, the prices of square meters in Belgrade and throughout Serbia have not stopped growing. Squares in Novi Sad, Nis, Kragujevac, Sabac, Cacak and Pancevo reach the price of 1,000 and 1,500 euros per square meter, which is 50 percent higher than in the period before the pandemic.
According to real estate experts, the price per square meter is not dictated by investors, but by buyers. The moment the interest drops, the market is oversaturated and buyers are not ready to pay such high figures – prices will “burst like a soap bubble”.
The owner of the real estate agency from Novi Sad, Mariana Boskovic, says that the demand for apartments is really higher than before, but that such a situation is periodic.
“Apartments are selling well, but that’s not exactly the extent to which it is presented, everything is a bit exaggerated. When the number of infected increases, the real estate market stops. When the situation stabilizes, the real estate market revives. Investors want prices to rise, but buyers expect prices to fall. That’s why the price increase is very unusual and it seems like an artificially maintained balloon, which has to explode. Of course, it mostly depends on the buyers, because when they are not ready to pay high prices, they have to fall,” says Mariana Boskovic.
One price on the ads, in practice another
According to her, one of the reasons that the sale of apartments is good, and the prices on the ads are high, is that it has become a practice to put more prices on the ads than the real ones.
“Most sellers first try the highest possible price in the ads, and then finally sell the apartment at a much lower price. Therefore, the impression is that high apartment prices do not affect sales at all and do not reduce it, but that is not the case. And buyers expect the price to decrease, they always calculate that it will be slightly lower than stated, because without a reduction they are really very high,” says the owner of the real estate agency.
By the end of the year the price per square meter falls?
It is difficult to predict exactly when the price of a square meter will fall in Serbia, because it depends on several different factors.
“I expect prices to rise the most by the end of this season, more precisely during this summer. Then at the end of the year there is a possibility that prices will start to fall. A similar situation happened after the global economic crisis in 2008, which was felt a year later. There has been an oversaturation of the market and falling prices of apartments, which we can expect at the moment. Especially because many apartments are being built, there have practically never been more construction sites. The question is how many buyers there will be,” says Mariana Boskovic.
Investors cannot allow their money to be captured
When the interest of buyers decreases, the price will automatically fall, because investors cannot allow their money to be “captured”, says our interlocutor.
“Sellers will first try to lower prices by a small amount, say 50 or 100 euros. If that doesn’t work and there are still no buyers, then we have to go further with cheaper. Especially because the circumstances due to the pandemic are not good. They lost their jobs, banks reduced their participation for the loan, taxes increased, everything became more expensive, so it is difficult to expect that citizens have more money to buy an apartment than was the case before the pandemic,” said the owner of the real estate agency.
Some agents think differently
Milan Stankovic from the real estate agency from Belgrade, says that he believes that the prices of square meters will not fall in the future, because “there are no conditions” for that.
– Prices will grow by at least some 10% by the end of the year. It is impossible to avoid, because investors invest more in construction materials, fuel, almost everything, so they have to pay for it somehow. Material prices have risen by almost 50 percent, all of which raises the cost of construction. When we add fuel and transport, that’s extra. The biggest problem is the workers, who do not exist and are becoming more and more expensive. Therefore, it does not pay off for investors to sell apartments at lower prices,” Stankovic believes.
What are the current prices
Let us remind you, the Chamber of Construction said that the prices in Belgrade in the next year, at some locations on Savski Venac, will reach several thousand euros per square meter, while on the other hand, in some parts of Palilula and Zvezdara we can expect that prices fall.
Currently, in Novi Sad and Kragujevac, the average advertised price has increased slightly, so a square meter costs 1,493 euros, or 847 euros, while in Nis, that growth was six percent (to 977 euros). Subotica is there by half the price increase, and there is a price increase of three percent of 773 euros per square meter, Sputnik News reports.
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