Baku, Azerbaijan, September 12
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
The number and the area of apartments sold in first half of 2019 in Georgia with a total sales of 16,296 apartments constituting 1,119,000 sqm in living area broadly mirrors the same period of the previous year, Trend reports referring to TBC Capital Research.
In 1H2019, new apartments' sales kept growing in Georgia, up by 5.4 percent year-on-year, whereas the sales of the old apartments continued to decrease, down by 7.1 percent driven by decline in transactions of relatively smaller apartments.
As reported, the mortgage portfolio is on growth track, currently up by 3.9 percent on Foreign Exchange (Forex or FX) effect adjusted basis (6.1 percent adjusted for seasonality) since the beginning of the year.
After the initial steep decline, the interest rates on lari mortgage loans have leveled off since May at 8.9 percent. The overall price of apartments has increased in lari (up 2.6 percent), but decreased in USD (down by 1.4 percent), explained by the depreciation of national currency relative to USD.
There are signs of revival in new construction permits issued for residential apartment blocks in Tbilisi, with 91 new apartment block permits issued, comprising 417,000 sqm of living area.
The share of foreign buyers of Tbilisi residential real estate stands at 8 percent of total sales by the end of June 2019. Throughout 2018, this share was 13 percent.
(1 USD = 2.96 GEL on September 12)