Two-Day Event Dedicated to Property Investment Conducted by HESA Group in Collaboration with Jutarnji List and D&D

In Croatia, a great deal is spoken of overvaluation of properties, but as long as the Croatian economy and real wages of citizens continue to grow, there cannot be expected a significant correction, or rather a decrease in the prices of residential properties, stated Velimir Šonje, director of Arhivanalitika, at the Investment in Real Estate conference conducted by HESA Group in the Hilton conference & event center in Zagreb in collaboration with Jutarnji List and D&D. Šonje evaluated in the introductory speech that the Croatian economy will continue to grow this year, probably even by more than 3 percent, and that the growth was expected to continue in 2025 and 2026, but with a certain slowing down, with rates closer to 2 percent, "but far from any recession or unpleasant scenarios." Therefore, there are not expected significant changes on the property market. According to his predictions, the prices of residential properties will, along with the observed slowing down in the third quarter of last year, stagnate, possibly with a small correction, but "without drama." He emphasized that for the first time in history, Croatia has separate trends from those in the European Union, where the entire property and construction sector, led by the German market, is in a "shallow" recession and a weak recovery is expected. The correction of property prices on the level of the EU is currently around 4 percent, primarily due to the growth of interest rates which were intended to curb inflation. It is expected that the European Central Bank will begin lowering key interest rates by the second half of the year, and there may be pressure on the decline in interest rates for housing loans at some point in the coming months. Šonje pointed out that the increase in interest rates on housing loans in Croatia has been significantly lower over the past two years than in other European countries, and that we have more or less aligned ourselves with countries that we could never compare to before, such as Austria, Germany, or Italy, with the current average interest rate of around 3.7 percent. - The main driver of growth in investments in Croatia was the state. According to the index of the volume of activity in the construction industry, we returned to the 2010 level, largely driven by state investments, and the main question is what will happen with private investments - Šonje said, adding that contractors in construction will continue to be under pressure from demand, "they will lack workers, and that story will last for some time." On the panel "Who will build all the announced projects?" Dragutin Kamenski, owner of the Kamgrad company, said that the possibility of importing labor after increasing the quotas has allowed bringing in workers, and according to his information, there is no project that has stalled due to a lack of operatives.

On the panel "Is it the right time to invest in real estate?" all participants agreed that it is always the right time to invest, but the key is to recognize the moment and type of property. However, the lack of supply on the residential property market has been emphasized again, which also affects the price of property. - In Zagreb on the one hand we have old housing stock which is not attractive to everyone and which is often overvalued, and on the other hand we have a reduced number of apartments being built: today around 3,000 apartments are being built per year, while in 2007 and 2008 around 9,000 apartments were being built. That means we have a big deficit. Mostly new construction is being built for customers with higher purchasing power, while there is a lack of property for customers with average purchasing power. There are a lot of customers, for example, families with children, who are looking for property worth around 30,000 euros, but we do not have that in our offer - said Jelena Kravoščanec Todorović, director of the real estate agency Opereta.

Taken from: Jutarnji.hr

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