Real estate market: agents warn - falling numbers, buy an apartment'.

The sale of apartments in all cities has decreased significantly over the year, which has an impact on real estate prices. Above all, this applies to older apartments in the broad center of Belgrade.

The agents also have good news for all those who are thinking about buying an apartment in the near future, because if this trend continues, prices may fall by another 10 percent.

The real estate market in Serbia is showing a rapid decline - apartment sales have dropped by almost 35 percent in Novi Sad over the year, 21.5 percent in Belgrade, 15.3 percent in Nišu and 12.8 percent in Kragujevac.

Nikola Cobic, a real estate agent at the City Expert agency, says this is a significant decrease and the official statistics''The Republican Geodetic Department (RGZ) reflects the real situation. That is, real estate agents also notice a decrease in apartment sales in practice.

Uroš Jovanoviћ from the agency Art Nekretine also says that the level of demand has decreased. "We notice fewer calls from interested buyers, and therefore fewer transactions. This has been the situation for a whole year, and a 20 percent drop in real estate sales is a huge drop," explains Jovanoviћ.

Chobic points to two key factors causing the decline in sales: the increase in mortgage interest rates every month last year, which reduces the interest of loan buyers, and the fact that cash buyers, who buy with cash and who are always outnumbered,''everyone had already bought what they wanted and now they have also slowed down. Jovanoviћ also believes that prices have definitely reduced demand.

According to Čobić, older apartments have already felt the price drop. On average, in all of Belgrade, the prices of old buildings have fallen by about 10 percent.

Jovanoviћ says that it is logical for prices to fall when demand decreases, but the real estate market is unpredictable and no one can say with certainty that demand will not increase again. "If''such a decrease in demand will continue, prices may fall a little. For prices to fall sharply, there would have to be a terrible external pressure, such as, fortunately, a war on our territory,' says Jovanoviћ.

When it comes to new buildings, they are still expensive, as Nikola Čobić mentions. "The prices of new buildings are still at the peak they were at about a year ago. There is still no decrease, while the demand was higher because the price difference per square meter between new buildings and old apartments was small, around 200 or 300 euros, so people preferred to pay a little more for a brand new apartment," concludes Čobić.