Foreign Property Ownership on the Rise After 4 Year Decline

After four years of decline, the number of foreigners to purchase real estate in Croatia is on the up again, with growth of 8%, reports Poslovni dnevnik…

The President of the Real Estate Union at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, Dubravko Ranilović, said that foreigners had once again started to show interest in Croatia’s property market, after nearly half a decade of decline. Foreigners currently make up 18% of all sales and purchases. Last year foreigners in Croatia purchased 4,815 properties, whilst in the same period they sold 4,552 properties. Slovenians, Germans, Austrians, Italians and Hungarians, in that order, were the biggest foreign purchasers of property last year, making up 66% of all foreign purchases.

“Growth in the number of foreigners buying property in 2013 in Croatia of 8% is expected, when compared with 2012. Do not think that 5,000 transactions per year is a big number, but it is large in relation to the number of real estate transactions in the whole of Croatia, which has declined in the last five years. This is an expected increase, which is consistent with the stabilisation of the economic situation in Europe,” says Ranilović.

According to the report, 41,615 foreigners own property in Croatia, of which 11,907 acquired before 2009. Last year Istria was the most popular spot for foreigners to purchase property in Croatia, followed by Dubrovnik.