Apartment sales in Belgrade down by third, prices unchanged

Decline in apartment sales in Belgrade, which has reached as high as 30 percent over the last year, failed to lower the prices of apartments and houses. According to Blic, only about 4,000 apartments and 209 houses in the capital city have got a new owner in the past four months.

- Turnover has dropped drastically, by minimum 30 percent, while prices stagnate for a year, and nobody even thinks about lowering them. Investors' calculation is simple. When they were buying building sites in 2008 and 2009, financial projections were different and included expensive land lots. However, the market price has dropped from 2,300 to 1,800 euros per square meter in the meantime, making it unprofitable to sell these apartments at that price. The same goes for banks that sell apartments to activate the mortgage. They pay electricity and other bills, but they don't want to lower the offer as it was designed that way - says Nedeljko Malinovic from the Legat company.

Although most sellers refuse to lower their prices, there are also those who put the price down and still fail to sell their apartment. One of these people is Dejan M., who has been trying to sell his 90 square meter apartment in New Belgrade over the last year.

- It was originally priced at EUR 110,000, but then I lowered the price by 10%, and now I sell this apartment for EUR 95,000. If there was a serious prospective buyer, I would be willing to drop the price a bit more - says our interlocutor.