Homes that were supposed to be available to citizens have gone into short-term rentals or apartments due to a tax of a few hundred Kuna per year per bed. On the other hand, not only is nothing being done about housing for young people, but homes from long-term have also been moved into short-term rentals because it is more profitable,” says Ranilović.

A high demand for rented homes, high prices per square meter, and apartmentization with questionable taxation and the absence of a consistent housing policy, are making it difficult for young people to rent or buy a home, and Zagreb and the coast are becoming inaccessible for a start-up independent life due to high real estate prices. Prices are skyrocketing. According to the latest official statistical data, housing object prices in Croatia increased by an average of 2.8% in the third quarter of the last year compared to the previous quarter, while the annual increase in growth accelerated to 14.8%. “It is a critical time to establish some programs and adopt a housing policy and to see in which direction we are actually going, because this situation is unsustainable,” says Dubravko Ranilović, president of the Association of real estate traders at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce. “On one hand, we encourage the construction of apartments and the devastation of public space, and on the other hand, we are not doing anything for people who leave Croatia,” he adds. One of the main problems that affects the rise in prices is, according to his opinion, short-term rentals with low tax rates. “Homes that were supposed to be available to citizens have gone into short-term rentals or apartments due to a tax of a few hundred Kuna per year per bed. On the other hand, not only is nothing being done about housing for young people, but homes from long-term have also been moved into short-term rentals because it is more profitable,” says Ranilović. One of the measures that the state is trying to help young people is the subsidization of mortgage loans, in which the payment of the first five years of loan repayment is subsidized. “The biggest problem with the program of subsidizing mortgage loans is that it has a deadline, and when you have it, then in a short period of time, demand increases, which further affects the rise in real estate prices,” he said. He believes that programs that are supposed to help young people should be permanent, because young people who start their working life are often not creditworthy, and the current measure encourages those who have already decided to buy real estate. Zagreb: A good home quickly disappears, inflation is added to the rent However, young people find a way to cope. Someone does better, someone worse, but they have to settle somewhere. Student Matea Grgin has lived in rented apartments in Zagreb for two years. She says she spent days "standing" on pages with ads and Facebook groups, and refreshing pages all the time, because a good home quickly disappears. “I managed to catch this home for less than an hour after the person posted the ad. So, I was pretty lucky,” she said. She thinks it was very difficult to find a home before two years, but it seems to her that it is even harder now. “The rent increases by the rate of inflation from month to month, as it is written in the contract I signed, so I can't complain, and the landlord obviously didn't want to ask for more money, but raises it by inflation, and I count myself lucky,” said Grgin. The situation is similar elsewhere, if not worse, in Dalmatia, where there are more apartments than homes. In tourist cities, "ordinary people" do not have anywhere to live. This is a serious problem, Ranilović says. “We are not just talking about the emigration of young people, but also about the fact that we don't have engineers or doctors in some cities because they don’t have anywhere to live,” he said. “Take Dubrovnik as an example, where either everything is in short-term rentals or everything is very expensive. An ordinary person can't afford it. This is indeed a situation in which coastal cities in Dalmatia become cities of the wealthy,” he warns. Ranilović reminds that for short-term rentals, an annual lump sum is paid per bed, and the tax on rental real estate is on average higher than 12%, which means significantly more. Dalmatia: Live until the season, then get settled Student Nina Nevešćanin explains that it is difficult to find a home in Dalmatia because she also has a pet that makes it even harder. "After a long search, I found a relatively affordable home in the center of Zadar, and a landlord who likes animals," she says, adding that this is a "rarity". “The prices were too high in online ads. For neighborhood quarters like Bokanjac, which is far from the center, 500 euros are asked for a quarter," she said. She says there's no contract because it's a practice in Dalmatia for sub-tenants to have to move out of rented homes when the summer begins, but her landlord's family does not run a tourist business. “That's a rarity, because if I had to rent it to tourists, I might have to leave maybe as early as May, which happens to many people,” Nevešćanin said. “It's very difficult to find a home for a long term or in the season and at a relatively reasonable price, and a large number of landlords rent to tourists,” said student Anamarija Šimić, who rents an apartment in Split. Students are, she says, in a more favorable situation than young people who work, especially those who return home for the summer. Many landlords rent to students all year round, and to tourists in the season. “Students often can't stay until the end of the rental period and have to find another place to stay,” Šimić said, adding that students' dormitories offer the option of staying during the semester at a daily rate, but even there, there are tourists. Slavonia: Osijek is much more affordable On the other side of Croatia, in Slavonia, Student Ema Padavić has lived in rented apartments in Osijek for four years, and by changing them, she has come to realize that it is not that difficult to find a home in that city. “I often found cheaper homes, but they usually have a lot of problems, and if you want to find something decent, you have to be with someone on the apartment,” she said. Student Barbara Dautović has had experience finding a home in Osijek and believes that the situation is much better in Osijek than in Zagreb. “Osijek is much more affordable, and the housing issue is in order, Zagreb is a completely different story,” she said. Although the situation, according to their words, is good, Padavić says she knows of a case where a student's rent was increased by 100 euros, causing him to move out.

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