Baku, Azerbaijan, September 17
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
The amount of foreigners buying homes in Georgia has been on a steady increase in 2015-2018,Trend reports citing the TBC Research.
Most of the non-resident demand came from citizens of Russia, Iran and Europe.
The report also said there is a decline in buyers from Iran, which could result in estimated loss of $80 million inflow to Tbilisi’s housing market throughout 2019.
On average, old apartments sold in first half of 2019 were 11 percent more affordable than new apartments in 2018.
On a district level, Vake, Mtatsminda and Saburtalo are significantly more expensive than other districts. Others, in suburban areas like Nadzaladevi, Gldani, Didi, Dighomi and Samgori are most affordable.
Fewer transactions were financed through mortgages. As of the first half of 2019, the ratio of transaction value financed through the mortgage loans to the total value of housing transactions remains lower than in 2018, said the report.
In the last quarter of 2018, the proportion of new mortgages issued, net of refinancing, went beyond 50 percent of the total value of the apartment transactions in Tbilisi. In the first quarter of 2019, this proportion fell below 30 percent.
Six months into the new lending regulations, the declining interest rates on newly issued mortgages in national currency have stabilized around 8.9 percent.
After first quarter of 2019, the country’s mortgage portfolio was up by 0.1 percent on the Foreign Exchange (FX) effect adjusted basis, as compared to 2018 year end (2.5 percent adjusted for seasonality).
By the end of the half-year, the country’s mortgage portfolio was up by 3.9 percent on the FX effect adjusted basis (6.1 percent adjusted for seasonality) to 6.5 billion lari and Tbilisi’s mortgage portfolio was up by 3.3 percent on the FX effect adjusted basis (5.5 percent adjusted for seasonality) to 5.1 billion lari.
In first half of 2018, for comparison, on the FX effect adjusted basis, the growth for Georgia and Tbilisi portfolios were both 14.6 percent (16.9 percent adjusted for seasonality).