Small interest for croatian real-estates

Description:

Foreign buyers of properties in Croatia have less red tape to wade through, but the financial crisis means they have less money. Although demand is falling, prices aren't.
Croatia opened its property market, most notably its stunning Adriatic coast, to buyers from the European Union this month, but real estate agents expect no immediate boom due to the world financial crisis.
Under the terms agreed to in pre-accession talks with the European Union, Croatia allows EU citizens to buy lots and homes under the same terms as its nationals.
Although the change is "not revolutionary," as one agent described it, it does ease the enormous amount of red tape a foreigner has previously had to wade through to purchase a home in Croatia.
"With fewer documents required under the new rules and lighter administration, we were projecting five-percent growth in the market," national real-estate brokers' organization chief Dubravko Ranilovic said.
"Our expectations, however, need to be revised downwards due to the recession," Ranilovic added, estimating turnover might increase just before the summer season began but not in the medium term.
Croats have long feared foreigners would literally snap up all the best properties on their 1,100-kilometer-long Adriatic coast.
As of January, only 11,517 foreign citizens/firms owned property in Croatia, including 5,149 from Germany, 3,131 from Slovenia, 2,187 from Austria and 1,358 from Hungary.
The figures were several times smaller than what the Croatian media had estimated.
"There is no danger of a sell-out," real-estate agent Jasminka Biliskov recently told the "Jutarnji List" website. The market had been "less than lively," while "the few rich buyers are a drop in the sea," he said.
After all, Biliskov continued, foreigners could buy land before if they were from countries allowing Croats to do the same or under elaborate, but possible, legal schemes involving foreign-owned brass-plate firms.
"Those who wanted to buy, bought. Now that strong economies - the British, the Austrian and the German are in recession, I expect neither increased demand nor higher prices," Biliskov said.
In spite of the lack of demand, prices remain unchanged from 3,650 Euros per square meter for a flat in top-resort Dubrovnik in the south to 1,750 for one in Pula on the northern end of the coast.
So, unless Croats resign themselves to lowering their asking prices or until foreigners start dreaming of vacation and retirement homes instead of worrying about their finances, there will be little turnover on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.
"Even those who were willing to invest in Croatian property are now going to wait and see in which direction prices will go," said Vlatko Mrvoc, owner of a property firm on the Istrian Peninsula.