SALE OF SERB HOUSES

AIM Zagreb, 11 February, 1998

Until just recently, on the real-estate market in Croatia it was possible to buy a house in Istria, Rijeka, Kvarner, Dalmatia, Karlovac, Zagreb or Osijek, at half price or even less. The condition was, of course, that the owner of the house was a Serb, that he had no political protection, that he wished to leave Croatia and never to return to this country - except, perhaps, as a tourist. The whole deal was done under vague circumstances; the state did not enable legal sale and exchange of Serb property, but it nevertheless did tolerate such buying and selling because it was in harmony with the policy of "humane exchange of population".

    Deals of this kind began during the war, and they

expanded after completion of big conflicts in Croatia. "In the end of 1992 and the beginning of 1993, this turnover extremely intensified", says an owner of a real-estate agency, as similar institutions for ethnic exchange of property were usually called at the time. "At the time we were contacted mostly by the Serbs from western Slavonia. From Istria, mostly people from Serbia contacted us in order to sell or exchange houses". "To be specific, it means that a house in Istria could be bought for 25 to 30 thousand German marks, and in Zagreb for about 50 thousand. If the owners had not been Serb, they could have sold it for as much as 100 thousand".

The job of exchange was in the meantime mostly taken over by the state. But, private owners who had decided to shut down their real estate agency, made a mistake. Recently business has increased. Last year the Croatian government founded the agency for turnover of "certain" real estate, and nominated Ivica Vrkic to be its head. This agency is no competition to the privately-owned ones, as it was believed at first. The agency was founded by a special law and its aim is to buy houses and land from the Serbs who have left or wish to leave, and which will legally be given to the Croats emigrated from Bosnia & Herzegovina or FR Yugoslavia. The state will give B&H Croats special loans under favourable conditions, at low interest and with long deadlines, but they would become owners only after paying back the loan, which is - among a series of other measures - just another authentic way to colonize former regions with majority Serb population.

Privately-owned agencies will, in fact, help the state agency in its work. The state agency will buy property of the Serbs who wish to get rid of it as soon as possible regardless of the price, and property of those whose houses are either occupied or damaged, so that only the state can take over the care about them, because the state alone can evict and accomodate individuals and families into them. Since, for example, mostly the Croats from B&H are in the occupied houses, by buying such houses, the state will have a comparatively simply task: pursuant the conditions prescribed by law, it will offer the tenants to buy them. The agency has its pricelist, between 50 and 200 German marks per square metre of living area, which means that the most fortunate ones will be able to sell a house of 100 square metres with a plot around it for about 30 thousand marks. That is the price obtained by all those who are selling houses in Krajina or other unattractive parts of Croatia.

On the other hand, privately-owned agencies will deal with those who have more time to spare and wish to sell their property at prices closer to the real ones - one can hardly speak about market prices, because a real market which would determine the price according to the offer and demand, in Eastern Slavonia, for instance, still does not exist. Similar are the cases of those who are selling houses along the Adriatic, in large cities or in attractive locations.

The first such private agency was founded by a merchant from Borovo Naselje, Branko Janjatovic. He is a great optimist concerning business prospects. When less than a year ago he opened his agency - persuaded by a fried, a Croat - in a single day he sold ten Serb weekend cottages on the island of Vira near Zadar. Nowadays, in an interview given to weekly Globus, Janjatovuic claims that real business still remains to be done: his agency is offering at the moment for sale or exchange, more than two thousand Serb houses or weekend cottages! The price of these houses ranges between ten thousand to one million marks which is the highest price demanded for a villa downtown Vodice, small tourist town close to Sibenik in the central part of the Adriatic coast. For mediation in the sale Janjatovic charges three per cent of the price of the real estate only from the seller. "The buyer always has the advantage", says Janjatovic.

"Weekend cottages in Istria and central Adriatic are sold the most", he says. "The buyers, mostly Croats, do not want to buy weekend cottages around Dubrovnik or to the south of Makarska". Janjatovic claims that about twenty per cent of Serb villas and weekend cottages along the Adriatic coast are for sale nowadays. Their prices cannot be said to be very cheap: they are somewhat lower than usual, but nevertheless close to the real value of the houses. For instance, Janjatovic agency has in its offer a house in Pirovac, also near Sibenik, of 120 square metres, at the price of 180 thousand marks. A house in Zagreb of similar area can also be bought for the same amount of money. Its owner is a former officer of the Yugoslav people's army. In Sutivan on the island of Brac, a house of 120 square metres is offered for sale at the price of 160 thousand German marks. In Biograd, near Zadar, a house of 132 square metres is offered for 100 thousand marks, while a house twice as big in the same place can be bought for 170 thousand. The agency also offers business premises, downtown Split, at the price of 120 thousand marks for 26 square metrese, which certainly is the market price or very close to it. These houses and premises, however, are waiting for buyers for quite some time.

"In the past months, our telephones are constantly busy because of the calls of people who are selling houses", says Janjatovic's secretary, "while the number of those who are buying is a few times smaller". They estimate that houses will be sold mostly by the Serbs who have found a solution for themselves in FR Yugoslavia in the past seven years, but that a large number of the Serbs are nevertheless returning to Croatia because they feel safer here. Janjatovic claims that there is a negligible number of offers for sale from Lika, Banija and Kordun, as well as from Zagreb, where only two apartments are offered for sale. Not a single offer arrived from Knin - because the buildings there are mostly destroyed or there are people living in them - but the agency, as its owner says, would not take any such offers. The Serbs feel safe over there and do not want to leave any more, Janjatovic claims, but except for from the Adriatic, he receives most of the offers from eastern Slavonia, especially from the Serbs who live in villages with majority Croat population. "Mostly the poor people will remain and those who live in majority Serb villages", Janjatovic forecasts, speaking of the Serbs in Podunavlje.

"Business would progress at a much quicker rate if the agreements were implemented faster", he adds, praising the policy of nornmalisation of relations between FRY and Croatia. "Nowadays, we sell only every tenth of all the offered houses, because many already have new tenants or were destroyed". According to him, some houses have already been sold with false papers, some have new tenants so it is difficult to sell them, etc. The business of selling and exchanging Serb property in Croatia is still very profitable, and will be for a long time to come. Like after any war, the biggest profit will, quite certainly, be made by lawyers who charge exceptionally high fees for setting things right in the chaos caused by the war, and there is more to do than they can handle.

BORIS RASETA