The crisis means that people are once again returning to Slovakia
Literally everybody deals with real estate statistics today. Despite the fact that the expert and methodical umbrella is unofficialy considered the Slovak Statistical Office (SSO) and the Eurostat on European level, today real estate figures and other data are also produced by Slovak National Bank (SNB), real estate consultancies, estate agents; property developers and investors also keep statistics. Regular customers, such as printed and electronic media, come across contradictories in the sources. Their diversification is increasingly frequent both for the forecasts and the assessment criteria.
The first discussion panel of the 6th annual
international conference Real Estate Market >
Slovakia 2010 – Return of real estate optimism, organized by the Internet
magazine Stavebné forum.sk in Bratislava Gate One hotel on 11th November 2010,
was named Real Estate Market: statistics and analyses for investors. During the
presentations and subsequent discussions, the announced schedule developed so
that more space was given to general conclusions rather than to the methodology
and methods of collecting and evaluating partial statistical data.
“So is stabilization coming to Slovakia too?“ – Daniel Bilý from Century 21 Slovakia, presenter of the first panel, asked this challenging rhetorical question at the end of his short speech. And it later became one of its unifying themes in many variations.
Mikuláš Cár (SNB): Cyclicity is playing with us …
“Better times seem to be coming after the
downturn and decline. We feel some positive moments in the whole of Europe.
Year-on-year changes are already showing a more stable level. However, it is
necessary to be a cautious optimist,“ noted Mikuláš Cár from Slovak
National Bank (SNB) and he immediately called the database on real estate market
as unsatisfactory. He added that Slovakia is not an isolated island since its
position is dependent on a number of factors with dominant outside influences.
“The cyclicity is playing with us and the current economic situation is
decisive. By looking at figures from abroad, we may see some positive impulses.
Despite falling residential property prices, the building plots sector prices
increased in the last years,“ Cár pointed out the unpredictability of the
trends.
He thinks that an important factor for the supply are loans. “Interest rates have reached the level of 5.3 % which means that we are getting closer to the client. Granting loans in Slovakia still has higher risk than in other European countries,“ Cár said. Regarding the statistical sources and ways of intererpreting data as mentioned above, he noted that there is a large number of entities in the market today and that the estate agents or investors don´t wait for it to be served on a silver tray. “However, it is pleasing that on the Eurostat webpage, there is already an instrument for unification of criteria,“ Cár pointed out.
Zeno Kezman (NARKS): Real estate legislature is not sufficient
“NARKS itself doesn´t prepare any statistics. We
shift their preparation to SNB or to other customers as a commercial product,“
stated Zeno Kezman from National Association of Real Estate Agencies (NARKS) and
he drew attention to the insufficient legislature in the entire real estate
market. As he clarified, the property price maps are not statistics but a
product which helps to get two types of information about the prices:
advertised/asking – selling/final (the difference between them tends to be
5 to 10 %). According to Kezman, there are countries where the real estate
crisis is hardly visible (France, Germany, Austria) and then there are those,
such as Romania, where the real estate market virtually froze.
Michal Mušák (SLSP): Bratislava statistics are relevant
“We obtain them from SNB,“ said Michal Mušák
(Slovenská sporiteľňa, a.s.) when asked what data commercial banks work with
and he added: “We consider Bratislava statistics relevant. There is not much
point to follow the overall Slovak average.“ As he added, the specific area of
mortgage development, for example they watch the structure of persons asking for
mortgage. The first important factor, according to Mušák, is the influence of
the highest salaries in Bratislava and Košice on flat prices and the second is
the fact that loans for housing are already more accessible than in 2002, the
third factor is demography and migration of the population. “Regarding our
banking market, about 80 percent of money deposited is used for loans,“ said
Mušák reacting to criticism of the banking sector.
Dany R. E. Rottiers (EIC): East Slovakia awaiting a big boom soon
“The crisis has caused that people are returning
to Slovakia,“ emphasised Dany R.E. Rottiers from EIC spol. s r.o. He says
that SNB offers the “best presentations for investors who can see not only the
current situation but also future outlooks in terms of stability, currency,
property prices per sqm and unemployment.“
Regarding investment potential of Slovakia and investment opportunities in its regions, according to Rottiers, these are dependent on their connection to motorways. He estimates their launching in the Košice and Prešov regions in the years 2012 to 2016.
It was in 2005 – 2008 when the influx of direct foreign investment to Slovakia was at its the highest. This had a great influence of the employment rate in the country´s eastern regions. “At this moment at least one investor comes to the east of the country every week. Since the government has declared state support, I expect a big boom there within 4 – 5 months. However, we need to be able to anticipate employees´ needs,“ Rottiers said pointing out that new residential options should be created in Košice and Prešov, but not for example in Medzilaborce which people leave.
Rottiers sees other promising opportunities of the real estate boom in the east in the logistics sector, he sees a thin line between actual logistics and light industry. “Delivering something to Central Europe via broad gauge is 4 times quicker and 20 % cheaper,“ he explained. However, he thinks that the decisive factor for Slovakia´s investment potential will be the new act on state support for investors.
Illustration photo – Tatra Residence
Jagg.cz
Linkuj.cz
Google Bookmarks
Live bookmarks
Digg
Del.icio.us
MySpace
Facebook