The asking prices of real estate in Zagreb in December 2011 dropped 3.2 per cent on the year, while going up 1.3 per cent along the Adriatic coast, the CentarNekretnina property sales website said on Monday.
Month on month, the changes on Zagreb's real estate market were not significant, while asking prices along the coast increased 0.5 per cent.
The average asking price of a flat in Zagreb in December 2011 was EUR 1,744 per square metre, virtually the same as in November but down four per cent on the year.
Along the coast, the average asking price of an apartment per square metre was EUR 2,038, up 0.6 per cent on the month and 4.9 per cent on the year.
The most expensive apartments were in the southern Dubrovnik-Neretva County - EUR 2,978 per square metre on average - and in Split-Dalmatia County (2,447 euros).
The most affordable weekend houses were in Lika-Senj County - EUR 1,691 per square metre.
CentarNekretnina quoted Josip Tica of Zagreb's School of Economics as saying that the possible imposition of a property tax could affect the housing market. He said that if the government imposed a tax on legal persons for unused property, banks would be exposed to a new cost, which would encourage them to lower the prices of flats and put them on bargain sale.
Buyers will certainly expect prices to continue declining as long as they see empty buildings virtually all over Zagreb while bankers, on the other hand, are trying to assure buyers that their houses are the best, yet their prices are not declining, said Tica.
As regards the coast, he predicted that its market would be affected by the economic situation in Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Germany, and that one could not count on buyers from those countries in the foreseeable future.
