Croatia these days is a very tempting destination for European investors searching for opportunities to buy a peace of “haven” on the most beautiful cost of the Adriatic Sea. Being part of the European Union and half way to join the Schengen zone, looks like Croatia is a sweet and safe opportunity to enter in more affordable way. Expectations are that Europe will increase the market prices with cheap financing. All this isn’t a big secret, the most brave investors have already shown their interests during the “COVID Era”, purchasing the most interesting properties all over the cost. Properties that where listed for years on the market, suddenly disappeared one after another. Sometimes buyers don’t even bother arguing the better price or, even like the one experience we had when they actually offered higher than the asking price for a front sea line location.
Pinch Group isn’t a Real Estate agency and we don’t look for clients to buy any property – we look for the property with the best opportunity for business! Our target is to find a perfect property, add some value to it through renovation, renting services, property management services, etc. Increasing that way capitalization through years and a good ROI.
Today there are a lot of offers of ready to move or to furnish opportunities. If you are holding cash and want a headache free property – you will pay premium and join your peace of “heaven” soon. The most recent experience we had was assisting a client from our partner in Czech Republic acquiring a non-furnished apartment in a second row to the sea in a small village on the Island of Pag, paying 3,8K euros/m2 with almost full sea view. In my opinion it is a big price to pay for a little amount of services tenants get around the property. You still need to furnish, decorate, find a property management company that will take care of it while you are away. Maybe you are that kind of investor: you enjoy taking design decisions with some extra time on your hand for the hobby – then you are welcome to the club! For our fortune Czech partner Pinch Group will take care of the investment on all steps from purchasing, furnishing, management and taking part of any future plans saving time and money.
What are the challenges of investing in Real Estate in Croatia?
For the beginning you will find some rather unusual practices on legal side if you are not from this region. It isn’t difficult at all, it just can be different from other parts of Europe, a good adviser can easily walk you through the process.
Where in Croatia? This is a question you should ask yourself, even if you visited so many times Croatia. Have you visited Croatia during the winter time? This is another question a good adviser could give you. Depending on the final purpose of your purchase, there are places that suit better than others, depending on if you are buying for your personal vacation, for rent, or you are planning to move.
Those two first tasks are the easy ones, the real challenge comes if you want to renovate or build from scratch your new property. Through our 6 years of experience doing business in Croatia as expats we met with a huge list of possible challenges on 7 properties we are actually managing at the moment. There are some issues we are still working out from the day first! We learned that a right architect makes the difference when time matters, he/she is the one who defines for how long you will wait until you get your permits. His mistake can convert 3 months into 7 years nightmare. Like in a case of a couple from France that decided to retire in a stone house in the island of Vrgada, they waited for 7 years the permit and once they got it – there wasn’t any wish left to get it done, now they are selling it out. This couple stayed few years in our guest houses hoping to move soon to their own place.
That is why we highly recommend spending a necessary time to research and take care of this part before considering to pay for your property. We were working to solve these challenges for years, dealing with different contractor companies, contracting our own workers, different architects, lawyers, accountants, consultants, Real Estate experts and many more. Now we know the way it works for us, we are happy to share our experience and you can easily find our partners on our page, as well as a contact form in case you want us to consult you or get an advice, completely complimentary.
