Little things such as installation of efficient light bulbs, computer shutdown, new windows and insulation can help to achieve monthly saving of significant amount of money.

The first thing you must do if you want to reduce energy consumption, and therefore save money, is that all appliances should be completely off when not in operation. This is especially true for computers and monitors, chargers for mobile phones and cameras.

The second step is to purchase efficient light bulbs. They spend five times less energy and lasts 8 times longer than ordinary light bulbs. Of course, shut down the lights when not in the room. You will feel this on your annual cost.

Every appliance in the apartment should be an energy class A or A +. These devices consume up to 45% less energy than energy grade D. This means that on every appliance you can save 100 to 200 kuna annually, so now calculate depending on the number of devices you have in the apartment.

We arrive to the heating and cooling. Do not exaggerate with air conditioning because it is not good for health, but note that the cooling of only one degree spends 3-5% of the total energy. When buying make sure that the climate device is of the class A and consider buying a device with inverter because it achieves savings of 20 to 40%. When we talk about heating obtain thermostats for radiators. This way you can save up to 20% and if you decrease the temperature for only 1 degree you can save about 5% of energy.

A little bit more expensive investment is to change the windows. Windows you want have double or triple glazing. It would be good that windows also have Low-e coating on the inner side, as well as a quality framework that does not lose heat. These windows are 20% more expensive, but they have 50% lower heat losses.

The next more expensive step is good insulation, especially in private homes without the facade of old flats. With good insulation and windows you can cut your energy costs in half. Listen to the architects and engineers when they give you advice for insulation.

If you want to go all the way then install solar panels. With them you can completely remove the cost of heating water in the summer and reduce energy consumption 30-60% during the winter.

What will be necessary to make the Croatian real estate market finally free of this crisis? It appears that all the efforts of local banks and the state have so far not led to a significant shift for the better and to make matters worse there has been no significant fall in prices. In such circumstances it is difficult to sell a property, as evidenced by the increasing number of cancellation of agencies and many agency employees losing their job.
It seems that the only effective solution is increased investment on the market. The Croatian market can not independently initiate a significant investment cycle because there are not enough investors and it is also a small market compared to others. What we are waiting for in this situation is the stronger growth of the largest European markets, which should lead to a new investment cycle in Croatia.
Continuation of negotiations for accession to EU will send a message to investors about stabilization and potential benefits of investment in Croatia. The fact that Croatia is closer to entry into the Union combined with a defined strategy and investment incentives could create a new interest among investors and encourage foreign investment.
What is now hindering new investments across Europe are low rates of return, so investments of most countries are lower as much as 60% compared to the first half of last year. However, as 2009 is getting closer to the end increased investments are expected in most countries, and it is also expected that the next few years will bring more stability regarding the rate of return. Currently the banks are also not helping a lot with their limited offer of loans, and if they even give credits then they do it by much more stringent conditions. All this has a bad effect on the real estate market and it is a part of the reason for current slow pace of recovery.
Fortunately, good news are coming from the United States of America, Canada and Asia, so next year we expect more investors from these countries, especially from China, whose investors could start up the sleepy commercial real estate market.

It is difficult to determine which is the right time to move into such a serious investment like buying a new apartment or house. There are lots of obstacles and it is important to pay attention to some of the most common mistakes.

Do not think too much about the situation on the market. It is useless to wait for the market to touch the bottom because then you will never make a decision. Real estate market in Croatia is at the moment, unfortunately, faced with this problem. When choosing to buy you should always have the market situation in mind, but above all consider whether you are able to financially sustain a purchase. Too much thinking can sometimes take you in the wrong direction.

You always leave yourself room for financial maneuvering. In addition to costs such as loan and arranging, some unexpected expenses can always come up, so be smart enough to take such problems into account in advance and create a fund to handle these kinds of crises.

When you buy property in Croatia you should always have a qualified lawyer and an agent from a professional Croatian real estate agency. Despite the fact that they will check all the legal details and put together a favorable contract, always be sure to check all items of the contract yourself in the end.

Thoroughly check the property you intend to buy! Every day we read in newspapers about the various stories related to the problems after the purchase. Today you simply can not be sure whether the property you are buying is all right, even if it is a completely new building. Take some experts who understand construction with you to review and the real estate objectively assess the situation. Do not take risks and buy at the first sight only because you have fallen in love with your new house or apartment after the first inspection. This is a one way street towards the purchase of a bad property or failure to catch better opportunities. In addition to checking the property, check the neighborhood too. It makes no sense to live in hell with noisy and problematic neighbors.

Finally, always bear in mind that your finances are not limitless and have a cost plan before you purchase. You may think you can afford a loan for a house or apartment of your dreams regardless of the loan amount, but is there any sense to go into too much debt and later barely survive the month. Be humble and rational, do not you let your life in a new home lead you into a financial collapse.

Everything must end where it is started and the crisis will also probably end in America, most probably on the real estate market, which is where the breakdown began and triggered the avalanche of problems that we encountered during the last year or two. This is why every good data from the United States makes us all especially happy.
For starters, the number of houses that went to construction in August grew by 1.5 percent to almost 600 thousand, 598 thousand more accurately, which is the largest increase in the nine months of 2009. Also, work has begun on 25 percent more family housing units and soon government incentives to build first houses will start too. This all had a positive impact on the labor market, which is slowly showing signs of recovery as the number of applicants at the Department of Employment fell by 12 thousand.
Besides all mentioned above, the fact that the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, has plans to insert further 1.25 billion U.S. dollars to the mortgage market echoed all over the place. The goal is to revive the stumbled U.S. economy through the recovery of the financial system and reduce the various requests for FED’s assistance from banks. Several support programs were also approved aimed at combating the credit crisis that started two years ago, in August 2007. Since the start of 2009, FED invested almost $ 700 billion in mortgage insurance, and by April 2010 there are plans to spend another 556 billion in order to maintain low interest rates.
It seems that the crisis in the banking system of the United States finally ended and now is the time for programs that will strengthen the economy again. Besides the obvious reasons why this is good news for the citizens of the United States, it is also very good news for the rest of the world because it signals the recovery of financial and real estate markets in other countries that were hardest hit by recession, especially in Europe. Such developments should also positively affect the recovery of the economy in Croatia, while the increase in purchasing power could return foreign customers to the Croatian property market.

The World Bank has sent some recommendations that should encourage faster development of entrepreneurship in Croatia and accelerate the exit from the financial crisis and recession.
Among these recommendations we noticed one related to the real estate tax. Experts from the World Bank claim that this tax is one of the biggest obstacles to further development of the Croatian economy. This tax is now paid at a rate of 5%, which discourages people to formally resolve the status of their properties. It was also stressed out that some other European countries with which Croatia is often compared, for example Poland and Slovakia, have long ago resolved problems with this kind of taxation. It is recommended that Croatia should fully abolish the tax on real estate and instead introduce a fixed fee for the transfer of ownership over the property.
To make matters more complicated, it is not only this tax that is problematic. There is also a bit absurd provision that any transfer of ownership must go through the court and is not legally valid until the court approves it. With regard to the “legendary” speed and efficiency of the Croatian courts, it is clear why such a provision hampers the development of entrepreneurship and real estate market in Croatia. Solution recommended by the World Bank is that this procedure should be completely removed from the jurisdiction of the courts and instead of it to create a sort of a one-stop-shop for property registration. It is also recommended to allow the registration of ownership electronically over the internet.
Problems with real estate greatly affect the development of new small businesses because they are slowed down by the non-availability of land, especially in coastal regions.
World Bank wants to see Croatia, a candidate country for the European Union, recover from the crisis as soon as possible, but the decision on acceptance or rejection of these advices related to real estate is now in the hands of the Croatian Government.

In Central and Eastern Europe, crisis has significantly changed the way of doing business when it comes to residential real estate, but many people are still planning to purchase new property. In fact, research shows that quality housing is still missing.
During the past few years construction of new apartment buildings and houses was in constant growth, but despite this demand was always much greater than supply. Economic growth and wage increases led to a situation that most people, although some were already property owners, sought to improve their housing standards. Given this market situation, there is great potential for further development. In fact, most of the apartments in Croatia and the region was built during socialism so their quality is not nearly at the level of those in European countries. This situation also encourages many to sell their old apartments and buy new ones, which especially applies to some areas on the Adriatic coast and outside the big cities, where new investments in the construction of apartments and houses are expected the most. Unmet demand and weaker quality of housing are the best guarantee that property market in Croatia will not break.
But one should bear in mind that the current macroeconomic situation in the region is favorable as before. Potential for growth still exists, but banks have set new criteria for loans due to high risk, so capital is now unavailable to both citizens and investors. However it is the opinion of most experts that there will be only short-term slowing of the market, while in the long term we can expect stable growth with perhaps a somewhat different price policy.

After the Croatian VAT was increased from 22% to 23% and a new “crisis tax” introduced on all earnings, it seems that a new Croatian real estate tax is already being planned.
No details related to this tax are known, but it is mentioned that only second and third real estate will be under taxation. Some economic analysts believe that taxation of property, including real estates, is a good decision, but that this should also lead to a decreased taxation of work and wages. One of the possible models could be the taxation of only a part of living space depending on the number of residents, which would mean that only an “excess” in square meters would be taxed. Other possible solution would be not to tax the number or living space, but only the value of a real estate. Except from this real estate tax, there is also talk about new taxes on dividends and profit from selling shares and companies.
To summarize, we can only wait for the new state budget for 2010 to be absolutely sure what the Croatian government will “cook” next.

There are no buyers in the Croatian real estate market and prices have fallen significantly during the past year. Some of the agents feel that the prices will decrease even more in the next year, but most analysts agree, however, that now is the optimal time to buy.
Prices on the most attractive locations such as Istria or Dubrovnik are now a lot more realistic than before, while at the same time the influence of the financial crisis resulted in significant changes in demand for real estate from abroad, especially when it comes to buyers from the UK, which are now much less numerous than before. Beginning of this year brought a very bad situation and soon there was more than 10,000 unsold flats. Even the law of equalization of foreign buyers with residents of Croatia didn’t bring significant progress. Despite all the problems Croatia is still a very attractive tourist destination, which has so far this year recorded better results than other well known destinations such as France, Spain or Italy, even with the crisis raging all over the world, which makes it extremely interesting to all real estate investors. The beauty of the Croatian coast and small towns charms all visitors, but be warned on the necessity to employ a good lawyer and real estate agency. Many proprietary relations are still unsettled from the time of socialism, so one must be careful that the investment in a nice new home does not turn into a legal hell in Croatian courts, which are among the least efficient in the world.

During the past couple of years business offices were being built all over the place, with even more of them announced before the crisis. Then the recession came and all plans were put on hold.
All investors should consider themselves very lucky with the fact that most of their office spaces were already rented out when the crisis struck and that companies which now operate in them are bound with long term contracts. This left a rather small number of unused offices on the market and the demand for them also dropped because of the financial crisis. It may seem a little bit weird, but this situation is actually good for the market of commercial real estate in Croatia, which is now stable. If it had not come to this, the offer would eventually be much higher than demand and prices would drastically fall. Something like this already happened in some European markets.
Currently the development of new projects is put on hold because banks announced more strict conditions for getting loans, so now investors have to come up with their own source of financing. Despite all these problems, it is expected than the regional market of commercial real estate will continue to develop in the near future.

We recently gave some information about how foreigners can buy property in Croatia and we stated how one way was to start a company. Now we are going to give you more detail on this subject.

It is best that you get a Croatian lawyer to do the registration of your company with the Commercial Court, Central Bureau of Statistics, Tax Administration, Croatian Pension Insurance Institute and Croatian Institute for Health Insurance.

Every company in Croatia must of course have an address in the country to be registered, so you should probably take care of this first. Then you should get to work on certifying all the documents to make them legally authentic. You do this in the office of a public notary, which will be explained to you by your lawyer. You also have to translate any document written in some other language.

Now we get to the part of opening a bank account for the company. First of all, it should be noted that opening a private limited company is the cheapest way of getting a company in Croatia as it requires only 20,000 Kunas, while anything else would be much more expensive. You can have more accounts in more banks if you believe you could need them, but you must specify which account will be used for which specific purpose.

After this you must register with the court that resides over the area your company is located. First you submit the notarized application which must contain company name, office, business, account, capital, statement by board members, names and identification data of all owners, document of establishment, list of managers and statements that prove how the company or it’s owner have no debts towards the Croatian institutions or any other liability.

When you take care of all the legal details you should make a stamp which has the name of the company and the court registration number, after which you also must get the company number given by the Central Bureau of Statistics and a tax number issued by the Tax Administration.

If you plan to have some employees in your company you must take care of their pension and health insurance.

As you see, starting a company in Croatia is not easy at all, but if you have a good lawyer who can get it done as fast as possible, than you should be able to move into your Croatian real estate without any unnecessary problems!