In less than a month, Croatia and its real estate market will become part of European Union. Entering this economic union on 1 July 2013, Croatia is becoming 28th member state of the EU.
Still, the future of economy in our beautiful country is grim, as recession is still in full swing. Where will economic recovery come from, it is unclear as there is not much production to fuel the recovery or political will and know-how to change decades of wrong doings. From the real estate buying and selling perspective the EU membership will help future EU citizens foreigners, home owners in Croatia. Banks and other financial institutions will introduce easier options for obtaining mortgages and loans for foreigners. Most concerning, from economy standpoint, is the fact that Croatia has not seen economy growth for four consecutive years. Combined with lack of real effort to reduce role of government in business processes, budget deficit is already at the limits allowed in EU.
Mistakes made by Slovenia are repeated in Croatia. Large state owned banks have not been sold on time and this decision is hurting economy. Boost to economy is expected to come from announced 44 billion direct foreign investment. This should strengthen economy and solve a part of unemployment problem. But, urgently selling state owned large companies that are generating huge losses year after year should be high on priority list of politicians, afraid to do anything. As usually, they are more interested in keeping status quo to help them get re-elected.
In February 2009, Croatia made changes to real estate market, enabling EU citizens that, when buying real estate, they are treated same as Croatian citizens. This is valid for buying private property form Croatian homeowners, though buying farmland is limited. It would be a shame to see Croatia not taking advantage of its excellent position and nature resources in marketing strongly tourism and real estate opportunities to whole world. There are not many other places on earth that can provide such extraordinary combination of clean water and air, so close to some of the busiest countries in the world.
Croatians hope things will eventually shift for the better after six years of talks over countries EU acceptance. After ten other ex-communist countries, Croatia will have tough time competing in the unified market to hundreds of millions of new clients for its products. Many hope that main effort will be in promoting tourism as most valuable export product. This will help real estate buying in Croatia as well, as more and more foreigners will become familiar with beauties of our beloved Mediterranean country.
Source: dreamingcroatia.com
