Photo: freepik.comOn the real estate market, sellers today are looking for prices that are believed to "happen" in the future, but CBRE's analysis shows that house and apartment prices will not continue to rise due to the overall financial situation, Nebojša Nešovanović, CBRE's Head of Valuation, told N1. When asked what citizens who are planning to buy an apartment should do, he gave a short answer: "If you are looking for an apartment to live in - buy it." In the coming period, we will see a decrease in traffic, there will be a smaller number of transactions. The demand will decrease, but so will the supply, and you will have a worse choice than today. Prices will most likely remain stable. You won't wait until the supply is so big that the prices drop."
He says that in the last two or three years there has been a marked increase in prices, and that many sellers expect the continuation of that trend.
"The demand generated by financial investors will slow down, because the financial situation is changing in Europe and here. There will be no price drop because the supply will slow down, financing will slow down and we will see fewer and fewer projects next year and in 2024," emphasizes Nešovanović. The slight drop in real estate prices in June and July is not an indication of a long-term trend, because those are the months when real estate turnover slows down.
He says that there will not be any significant changes in the Belgrade market, but there will be in the small markets that have taken off, that have had a big change in the previous 12 months, where the demand has increased sharply and the prices have skyrocketed, but, as he adds, the offer is also changing.
"In the following period, the demand on those markets will decrease, compared to the period of two years ago, when the supply will be higher, and then the prices of square meters will decrease," says Nešovanović.
When asked if it is realistic that someone expects to get 90,000 euros for a 25-square-meter studio apartment, Nešovanović answers that the sellers expect that price to be that much in six to 12 months when they complete the sale.
"And that could be expected if the financial situation we had before the crisis in Ukraine continues. But, when we see what's happening right now - that's not realistic, because the trend we've had in the previous 24 or 36 months with rising prices will not continue," the CBRE analyst said.
When it comes to inflated prices, Nešovanović explains that demand was high in the previous period.
"It pushed up the prices, and if you look at the index that shows that with the average salary, it takes almost 20 years to save for a 60 square meter apartment, then it would be logical for the supply to be higher, and significantly, to lower the price," he states.
But, he adds, there is no possibility to increase the offer, it is stable and inert.
"We suggested how to significantly raise the supply and make apartments affordable, as things stand now, a lot needs to be done." First, securing locations for large projects, speeding up procedures for adopting plans and issuing all permits, until finding alternative forms of financing. These are systemic issues that need to be resolved in order to get from the current 7,000 apartments in Belgrade to the construction of some 15,000 or 20,000 apartments. Then even those with average or slightly above average earnings could afford an apartment to live in. Our investors who are on the stock market in the world are more oriented towards the real estate market, we don't have a financial market, which pushes investors to the real estate market and they are a kind of unfair competition for those who need an apartment to live in," said Nešovanović.
Source: rs.n1info.com
