After the rapid growth of both sales and rental prices of real estate in Montenegro in 2022, this year will see a gradual calming down and a slight decline.
Stefan Mišković from Podgorica’s Multitask real estate agency said that last year was characterized by a price boom due to several reasons, the main one being the arrival of Russian and Ukrainian citizens and their demand for real estate, primarily for rental purposes.
He told the Investor portal that the rent prices for a one-room apartment in Podgorica in the last quarter of 2022 were on average EUR 414, which is 31% more than the year before, when they were at the level of EUR 315. Sales prices also increased in the same period, from EUR 1,300 to EUR 1,450 per square meter, which is an increase of just over 11%.
Mišković says that in Podgorica, several large construction projects are underway in several locations, with thousands of residential and commercial units, and the market will calm down after their completion.
– After that, we enter a phase where we have no further space for growth, and that is already in 2024. That’s when all large projects with several hundreds of thousands of gross square meters will be completed, and when that is delivered to the market, we will certainly enter a calmer phase, both as regards rental and selling prices – he stated.
He said that every big project that is launched is sold in advance. Those apartments are now sold at average prices of around 1,450 to 1,500 EUR per square meter. Some new companies that are breaking into the market offer apartments for 1,300 or 1,350 EUR.
Mišković believes that the prices in different parts of the city and projects differ significantly, and that the general average at the level of the whole of Podgorica is not entirely valid.
– In one part of the city, people from the coast and the diaspora, who come with cash, buy, while in another part, “ordinary working people” buy from loans. The part of the city across Morača is perhaps the most representative in that sense, because the prices in that part of the city are the most stable, but they give an indicator of where the market is going – he stated.
– The period of falling rent prices in Podgorica will come very soon. Let’s say, the monthly price of renting a one-room apartment of 500 EUR in the City quarter for a one-room apartment is unrealistic. A bubble has been created there and it will burst. Prices will not fall to the old levels, around EUR 270, because that is also unrealistic. The price of EUR 350 is the real price of such an apartment and I expect it to remain at that level after the market calms down – Mišković assessed and reiterated that Russian citizens, that is, their demand, had the greatest influence on such an increase in rent prices, local media reported.
