Albania, the last virgin real estate market in Southeastern Europe

TIRANA, May 13 – Property investors have turned their eyes on Albania considered as the last market to enter the traditional real estate cycle, experts said Tuesday.
The first International Conference on Real Estate Development in Albania was held in capital Tirana gathering some 40 speakers of local and international players at the two-day event to discuss exchange information on the real estate domestic markets.
“It is still a virgin real estate market and coordinating forces at this moment will sell it higher in the international market,” said Romeo Sherko of IkubInfo, a business advisory local company.
“At this moment Albania is a good market that should improve the housing stock, increase office space, develop retail schemes and shopping centers, that is, at an early stage of real estate development that will become an attractive market in three to five years,” according to Philip Bay of Colliers International based in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Albania, one of Europe’s poorest countries with one of the most isolated communist regimes until 1990, is becoming more and more popular with property investors coming from Israel and Arab countries or neighboring Balkan countries, experts revealed.
Tirana still lacks the business parks, shopping centers, office space to have the same assets as any other capital in Europe. From the existing 28,000 square meters of office space capital Tirana is expected to more than double that figure in five years with rents from 12-20 Euros per square meter, not including service charges.
Many investors or businesses are looking for shopping centers and other areas which they have missed until now due to the lack of quality, according to Stela Dhami of Colliers International Albania.
Besnik Aliaj, a local expert, hailed the government’s efforts to make the country more attractive with the flat tax, one-stop shop business registration and other facilities.
Vice Economy Minister Eno Bozdo said the government was preparing documentation for six business parks up to 850 hectares with good access to sea and airports, power and water supply, and communication.
Investors would get them for only one euro, an effort trying to turn into a magnet for foreign investors.
The western Balkan country has preserved good macro-economic indicators with an average of six percent annual GDP growth and inflation between 2-4 percent.
Last month together with Croatia, Albania got the NATO membership invitation and also it is in the process of becoming a European Union member after signing a pre-membership deal two years ago.
Experts called on the government not to promote a low, or middle-range tourism to compete with neighboring Greece or Turkey but develop its unspoiled tourist areas to high-end tourism.
Property reform and institution building should be the basis of turning the country into an export-oriented one, they said.
“The country has a skilled labor force which should be exploited to create the foundations for the export-oriented economy and generate wealth,” said Bay.
But still much depends on about a million of the country’s 3.2 million population which fled after the fall of communism in 1990 and brings up to one billion Euros (US$1.5 billion) of remittances a year to help their families at home.