Last year, foreigners bought real estate in Montenegro for 370 million euros.

Last year, from January to October, citizens and foreign companies purchased real estate in Montenegro worth 370 million euros, which is much more than in previous years, according to data from the Central Bank reports Podgorica.

The most real estate in Montenegro was purchased by citizens of Germany, then Russia, and in third place citizens and companies from Serbia.

Data on real estate sales for November and December last year will be known in March, but according to expectations, the turnover in these months could be about 60-70 million euros, so the total value of real estate sold to foreigners could reach the mark of 430-440 million euros.

For the whole of 2021, foreigners spent 278 million euros to buy real estate in Montenegro, in 2020 - 116 million, in 2019 - 178 million, in 2018 - 182 million...

In the last five years, foreigners have purchased Montenegrin real estate worth 1.2 billion euros. According to interlocutors from this area, the main reasons for the increase in the sale of real estate to foreigners last year were the implementation of the program of economic citizenship, in which through the purchase of real estate - apartments in tourist centers in the south for 450 thousand euros and in the north and underdeveloped communities for 250 thousand they were eligible for citizenship. The second reason is that in times of inflation, such as we have had in the past year, many people decide to purchase real estate as one of the more reliable ways to preserve the value of their money. Montenegro was interesting to foreigners as a developing country with great tourist opportunities and because of the large number of exclusive tourist and residential projects, such as Porto Montenegro, Portonovo, Lustica Bay, as they expect that the prices of such real estate will not fall, but only increase with the development of these projects.

According to the Monstat Statistics Office, the total value of real estate transactions in 2021 amounted to 400 million euros, and according to the Central Bank of Montenegro, foreigners bought real estate worth 278 million euros, which is 69 percent of the total turnover. This is due to the fact that foreigners mostly buy luxury apartments and villas that cost as much as a few ordinary apartments. Part of this transaction is hidden from the official statistics, as developers often contribute to the apartment under construction in the authorized capital of some company, and then sell this company, usually to foreigners. Thus, the buyer is indirectly the owner of the real estate through this company, and the transaction is not formally a real estate transaction, but with the company.

Last year, according to the Central Bank, the most real estate was bought by German citizens and companies - in the amount of 57 million euros, followed by Russians, who invested 50 million in real estate.

The Montenegrin government has decided not to disclose information about investments from Azerbaijan, Italy, Cyprus, etc., as the Central Bank has a rule to doom the data to secrecy if no more than three foreign companies participated in some category of foreign direct investment. Thus, the amount that Azerbaijani citizens and companies spent on the purchase of real estate remained hidden. The total investment from this country amounted to 28 million euros and was spent on buying real estate and lending to their companies, but both lines are labeled as classified information. The same fate befell Italian investments amounting to 46 million euros, which relate to the acquisition of real estate and the return of home equity. The investments from Cyprus of about six million, also spent on real estate or home equity returns, are also secret. The investments of about fifteen other countries and territories are also secret, but the volume of these investments is insignificant.