Real estate prices in smaller towns plummet, but no one is buying.
A real epidemic of ads for sale of houses and flats has affected small towns which are just an hour’s drive away from Zagreb. Homes for sale in Novska, Okučani or Nova Gradiška are difficult even to be counted, and the properties are actually being sold for just one-third of the asking price, which is low to begin with, reports dnevnik.hr on September 29, 2017.
One of the more popular websites for real estate sales offers 26 houses in Nova Gradiška. However, it seems that the inhabitants of this region do not have much trust in the internet. If you take a stroll in the town centre and the surrounding streets, you will see that many more houses are being sold by old-fashion street advertising.
For the most expensive house, which covers 320 square metres and has 750 square metres of garden with two tennis courts, the owners demand as much as 240,000 euros. However, that is an exception. The cheapest house is offered for just 17,500 euros, and about 15 homes are being sold for less than 60,000 euros.
Miladinka Stojić, who is the only formally registered real estate agent in the region, says that the deals are very rarely made and that asking prices belong more to the wishful thinking than the reality. “There are indeed a lot of houses offered for sale, but the number of actual deals is minimal, virtually non-existent. And prices are an altogether different story. The few houses which are sold bring in maybe just a third of the initial asking price,” said Stojić.
In Nova Gradiska, a small town with just over 14,000 inhabitants near the motorway which leads from Zagreb towards Slavonia, there is almost no street without at least one house being offered. Commercial premises are also on sale in nearly all the streets in the town centre.
For example, in just one 100 metres long street in the very centre of Nova Gradiška, there are four houses offered for sale. “The asking price is just over 40,000 euros. I have inherited this house, but we do not live in it, so I am not in a hurry,” said the owner of one of them. She added the house had been on the market for quite a long time, but without success. Interested buyers sometimes call and come to see the house, but even this low price is still too high for them.
Stanka Jelinić, a public notary with an office in the centre of Nova Gradiška, could not even remember when what the last time she verified a real estate purchase contract. “People do not have the money, everything is being sold, but no one is buying,” said Jelinić.
In Novska, about 40 kilometres away, the situation is similar. Mayor Marin Piletić stated that there are about 300 to 400 houses being sold. “Croatia has not prepared itself for the entry into the European Union, and that is why there is a trend of emigration of young people from Novska and other places. However, in the last few months, we have information that Europe is not a promised land and that a large number of young people are returning to their homes,” claimed Piletić.
Translated from dnevnik.hr.
