Home sales in Kosovo cause pandemic

According to incontinence agencies, the diaspora's absence this year is the main cause.

At a time when the whole world is facing a slowdown of economic activity in most sectors, the cause of the pandemic explosion, of course Kosovo is one of the countries significantly affected in many economic sectors. And the real estate sector is one of them, who has also suffered severe losses during this period.

Owners of companies dealing with the trade in real estates in the country have confirmed that their activity during the pandemic period has declined markedly.

However, they say, the price of dogs, regardless of pandemic, has not changed, even though the demand of citizens for discounting has been great, despite the fact that most citizens have faced fear of losing their jobs.

And for housing purchases, there has not been any tolerance on the part of landlords for any eventual discount at the price, agencies say.

They have also expressed concern over the apparent reduction in housing purchase requirements, especially in the municipality of Pristina, where according to them many shopping requirements have been cancelled by citizens.

There has been no change in prices, but during the meetings, the demand for discounting has always been laid down from the fact that it is not known how the work is going on (as long as there are that there are no sales prices there have been no tolerance or discounts from the owners, but even shopping requirements are few at this time”, one of the agencies for estate in Pristina said under anonymity.

Currently, the average price of rented apartments in Pristina's main neighbourhoods is brought by between 250 and 300 euros, according to them.

Major shocks to this sector are believed to have even given diaspora failure to come to Kosovo this year, when it is known that housing sales are increasing during the summer.

The diaspora's non-recognition has been markedly influenced, since sales usually increase over the summer because of the arrival of their countrymen, but this time we've had no movement even for rents that require a break, and for sale it doesn't even apply to”, the agency said.

All of these real estate agencies' activities are functioning with only 25% of their overall activity or even less, they said, as they say people are reluctant even for meetings and are very undecided because of their uncertainty about the work they possess.

Meanwhile, days ago the International Monetary Fund (FMN) has called the real estate market in Kosovo vague.

In the latest report on the financial system in Kosovo, The IMF has also dedicated a space to the real estate market in Kosovo.

According to the IMF, this market is extremely vague; there is no information on developments in commercial real estate and there are no price indexes for residential properties, writes the Economic Bulletin.

“Real estate markets are very vague in Kosovo and there are no price indexes for residential properties or available information for developments in commercial real estate”, says the “Financial Sector Stability Review “report.

The report says that it is challenging in Kosovo to make a distinction between healthy financial deepening and potentially excessive credit growth. Institutions have a very limited mirror on non-financial private sector balances and cannot easily determine the capacity to service debt of family economies and companies.

“There is anecdotal evidence that a large portion of the consumer loan is being oriented towards real estate in the absence of easy funding to access mortgage”, the report says.