While it has been possible to get a resident permit through the establishment of a business or through employment based platforms, those who owned real estate in the small Balkan country were not allowed to apply for a temporary residence permit.

New legislation as part of the \’Aliens Law\’ will now allow a foreigner who owns real estate in Montenegro to also get a one year renewable temporary residence permit, as long as one ca prove ownership of an apartment, house, hotel or restaurant.

Montenegro which counts a population of around 650,000 has been in high demand in recent years for foreign property owenrs, particularly russians who have in the past flooded into the country buying apartments and villas on the Adriatic coast. The latest move to make residence permits easier suggests the government is looking to keep foreigners longer in the country which is struggling to produce fresh investments and generate more income.

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According to Deada Hyka of Monitor, a weekly business magazine in Tirana, the secondary housing market has turned into a headache for the building industry, a \’hostage\’ for the investors in under-developed areas and a nightmare for real estate agencies who don\’t seem able to sell more.

Lack of market research produced a boom of building without any planning vision, and when coupled with several informal areas without proper documentation, the market is in a disarray and insecure state. 22% of apartments are empty, compared with 11.3% in 2001. Most unsold apartments are found in coastal areas of Durres, Vlora and Saranda while those around Tirana are mainly apartments built without proper legal infrastructure.

At first, people bought houses or apartments in Durres, Vlora or Saranda in the coast. Later on, the market developed towards suburban villas around Tirana, which prompted owners to sell their secondary residences by the coast which were being underused. Meanwhile interest from foreign buyers is still low as Albania needs to do a better job in marketing itself while the global economic crisis has affected sales across the continent.

Arben Dervishi of the Builders Association says that the Government should pursue a better tax policy which will decrease prices and then should let the market breathe through properly studied new building permissions in those areas where urban development is needed. Meanwhile, Dervishi says that there where they have allowed bad building, the Government should make use of such buildings for homeless people and those in need.

Despite concerns, Albania is increasingly evaluated as a good destination to buy a holiday home, as the country boasts 180 days of sun a year, a low cost of living, sandy beaches and a landscape laced with Greco-Roman antiquities.

A fledgling international property market is developing in the small country which sits next to the Adriatic sea, nestled between Greece and Montenegro, with property prices increasing by around 20 per cent annually for past five years, and are expected to hot up further if Albania is allowed into the European Union.

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“We have made substantial progress during the financial year and the portfolio is coming of age‚ with substantial developments delivered on time and on budget. We have now begun to roll out our updated strategy for the group‚ which focuses on delivering a high quality and growing income distribution per share‚ including through expansion into the Central and Eastern European (CEE) regions‚” said CEO‚ Lukas Nakos.

MAS’s updated strategy includes expanding its target markets to include the growing economies of Central and Eastern Europe through a joint venture with the developers and investors at Prime Kapital.

MAS intends to invest 200m euros in the joint venture over the next four years as it rebalances its portfolio across Europe.

“We are very excited about the joint venture with Prime Kapital. The team brings exceptional development‚ investment and financing experience in CEE to the table. There are attractive opportunities in the region backed by a combination of relatively high initial acquisition yields‚ substantial growth prospects and attractive debt terms that will deliver strong returns on equity‚” said Nakos.

South African investors have bought into European property stocks such as MAS as they look to hedge against rand volatility and are attracted to euro-denominated returns. The CEE region is also attractive as it is growing off a low base with many Eastern European countries receiving listed real estate investment for the first time.

source: BDpro

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Real estate investment volumes have been strong in Central and Eastern European countries for some years, and Poland and the Czech Republic expect to continue the trend with total transaction volumes reaching €6 billion by the end of 2015. This positive momentum in the CEE region has spread to Serbia and its neighbouring countries Croatia, Bulgaria and Slovenia within the South Eastern Europe region, with the first open market transactions taking place in 2015 in over five years as investors start to look further afield than the traditional gateway markets in Western and Central Europe.

Uros Grujic, head of capital markets for South Eastern Europe, JLL, commented: “The groups of buyers we saw considering the SEE region in 2015 were mainly coming from outside the traditional markets of Germany, France and the UK. Investors are attracted by the higher returns offered compared to core markets in Central Europe, and the strong performance of the retail assets in the region. To date, both NEPI and Atterbury from South Africa have invested into the Serbian retail market and we expect this trend to continue into 2016\”.

This appetite for retail assets in the SEE region is anticipated to continue growing in 2016, with a number of shopping centres in Serbia and Montenegro expected to transact in the first quarter of the year, reaching volumes likely to be well in excess of €300 million. These follow strong transactions in 2015, the most notable of which being the acquisition of a 33% stake in Serbia’s MPC Group, which owns a portfolio of retail assets including Usce shopping centre, the largest shopping centre in Serbia, by the South African Atterbury Group, in September of 2015, advised by JLL.

Andrew Peirson, managing director for SEE and Romania, JLL, added: “The challenge going forward for the region will be the much-needed development of additional retail stock, particularly in Belgrade. In addition, we are still waiting for investors to start taking advantage of the current state of the office sector in Belgrade, where vacancy levels are low and rent levels remain the highest in the region, offering healthy returns for foreign investors. We anticipate activity in the office sector in SEE to increase in the second half of 2016, behind retail.”

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