But for one such high-quality building, a renovated 170-square-meter stone villa located behind the cathedral, the Dubrovnik real estate agency Libertas Inženjering has successfully found a buyer. As the owner of the agency Goran Pikunić says for DuList, there is no shortage of inquiries for luxury real estate, especially since their offer is slowly increasing. The real estate market, he emphasizes, is ‘still alive’.
-Currently we are looking for luxury real estate because we have a lot of inquiries from foreign buyers, especially for real estate in the City and its surroundings, as well as houses or plots by the sea. Recently, we even published an ad to look for a hotel in Dubrovnik. At the moment, our clients want to buy a good and quality property, but at a realistic price - said Pikunić.
The coronavirus has obviously affected prices in the real estate market. He regulated prices so now, he says, they are realistic.
- Real estate prices in Croatia were unrealistic for a long time before the coronavirus, and we were going in one direction that was unsustainable - says Pikunić.
He said real estate agents and their poor valuations were, among other things, to blame.
- Agents would give a higher appraisal of the property, more than it is worth, just to have that property on offer. In the absence of good real estate, there was an overestimation. Prices were inflating, a ‘bubble’ was created which became unsustainable and at that moment a crisis occurred. Before, nothing would be sold for a long time because of unrealistic prices. Nobody expected a coronavirus, but we expected a new price increase and that the market would stagnate for a year on that issue - Pikunić will say.
He reiterates that his agency has numerous inquiries for villas worth millions of euros, but the problem is that there are no such good and quality real estate.
- Dubrovnik has been branded as a luxury city, but there are no such luxury real estates. There are few investors who want to deal with such real estate at all. I think that if we want to have better guests, we have to have better quality real estate. I hope that after the coronavirus, more investors will move in the direction of the trend of building more luxurious facilities - Pikunić points out.
The real estate market, but also tourism, is preparing for a big ‘restart’ and new rules.
As is already known, most investors in recent years have turned to the construction of residential buildings. Pikunić points out that there is currently no great offer when it comes to new construction, ie new apartments in Dubrovnik. But given the overall situation affecting the market, investors stopped a bit and ‘pulled the trigger’.
- There are not a large number of apartments in new construction. And that made sure that prices didn’t fall more than expectations were expected to fall. Prior to this crisis and the arrival of COVID, a good portion of the apartments in the new buildings that were planned and that had already been launched had already been sold. The effect that was present in the last crisis in 2008, when a large number of unsold apartments were on the market, did not occur. This was then particularly reflected in Zagreb, for example, where there was a huge number of unsold apartments and because of that prices fell sharply - said Pikunić.
There are several construction sites in Dubrovnik that have not been stopped by the coronavirus and where new buildings should ‘sprout’ or have already ‘sprouted’. One such example is the residential and commercial building on Montovjerna, the foundations of which began to be excavated in October this year. The investor is the owner of the company ‘Primorje gradnja’ Mario Konjuh. We will mention that it is still waiting for permission for two new facilities on Mihajlo. By the way, before the ‘Okrajak’ affair, which was related to this new construction, not two, but three residential buildings were planned. We stay in the area of Lapad, more precisely near the Park Hotel, where another residential complex is springing up, and in the construction of which several investors are involved. According to some information, the apartments are being sold at a reduced amount of 4,100 euros per square meter, and before this crisis, apartments in a good position allegedly reached a price of up to 4,400 euros per 'square'. Furthermore, DuList wrote about ten buildings with almost thirty apartments that are 'sprouting' in Hladnica, and they are being built by ten investors, mostly professors from the University of Dubrovnik. It is interesting how advertisements appeared on the websites of Dubrovnik real estate agencies about the sale of these individual apartments.
When we ‘take a look’ at Gornji Kono, a crane has been standing above the already excavated foundations for some time. The planned completion of the construction of the building on deposit is in the middle of 2021. In an attractive location in Ploče above the School of Tourism and Catering, the construction of two residential buildings has been going on for almost a year and a half, and each has eight apartments. The investor is the company Aliquanta d.o.o owned by Petar Čučuk. These are just some of the examples of new construction whose residential building has sold heavily. There are still a lot of projects that are in the plans and far in the process of obtaining a permit. By the way, apartments in Rožat are sold at lower prices, which are around 2,500 thousand euros per ‘square meter’.
He expects real estate prices to fall next year
