House prices stop growing in 2008

By Gajtis Bejleri
TIRANA, July 14 – The prices of apartments, houses, and other real estate assets have come to a halt in 2008, after almost doubling in the past five years. The housing market prices have had a drop of 0.5 percent compared to the first quarter of 2008, according to the report by the Central Bank of Albania.
At the end of 2007, the prices were recorded at 17 percent higher than the previous year, while each year for the past five years housing prices had increased on average by 25 percent a year.
However, the halt in prices seems to be only on the outskirts of Tirana and the rest of Albania. Prices seem to be still increasing, though not at the previous rate, in the downtown neighborhoods of the capital.
One of the main factors in this halt in housing prices is the liberalization of construction permissions, said the bank. Along with the halt in purchasing prices, there has been a slight decline in rent prices as well.
The huge increase of the last five years happened because of several reasons, one of them being the mass migration of the population from rural to urban areas. Another reason was the foreign investments, with a lot of properties sold especially by the seaside. Thus, prices increased along with potential buyers able to pay more for housing or clubbing bars in the country.