This sleek Beverly Hills abode on Loma Linda Drive may be the shape of pricey homes to come. Photo: Zillow

We may not have flying cars just yet, but a new residential construction project going up in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., may make you think otherwise.

The Porsche Design Tower will feature an elevator to lift owners–and their cars–to their front doors in seconds. A co-production of developer Dezer Properties and Porsche Design Group, the retail-oriented spin-off company of the luxury German carmaker, it will be the first residential project affiliated with the Porsche name. These car-friendly condos will range in price from $2.9 million to $9 million.

“You will drive into the building, onto the elevator ramp, shut the ignition off and be magically whisked to the front door of your apartment in 45 seconds to a minute and 15 seconds depending on what floor you’re on,” explains Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Properties. The elevator will cover all 57 floors and include technology that automatically identifies the car and the unit owner once both are on board.

In Pictures: Homes of the Future On Sale Now It’s just one example of how modern design aesthetics have coupled with technology to birth innovative, cutting-edge homes that not so long ago would have been reserved only for the sets of films like Minority Report (or TV shows like The Jetsons).

We rounded up a selection of futuristic abodes that challenge traditional McMansion layouts. Some are relatively new homes designed with green living in mind while others are the decades-old brick and mortar visions of celebrated artists. Realtor.com, Zillow.com, Coldwell Banker Previews International, Sotheby’s International Realty and others helped us sort through listings to handpick the sleekest, most avant-garde, in some cases zaniest, homes on the market. They conjure images of science fiction lore, and in many cases, have actually been rented out by movie and television studios for that express reason.

Futuristic homes will ultimately sell to affluent buyers who collect art or at least appreciate architecture as an art form. Here are five worth checking out:

Loma Linda Drive
Location: Beverly Hills, CA
Recently Sold: $9 million

This Ed Niles designed home is transparently modern. Photo: Zillow

Designed by Ed Niles, this home’s structure features curved glass walls and curved stainless steel windows and doors, fitting six bedrooms, an elevator and a seven-car garage within its layout.

West 29th Street
Location: New York, NY
List Price: $1.75 million

This Steampunk-style New York space is retro-modern. Photo: Trulia By Morgan Brennan, Forbes.com January 6, 2012 Provided by:

According to the latest research of the Global Property Guide, Croatia’s real estate market stabilized in the third quarter of the year. In Q3 home prices adjusted for inflation were increased by 0.3 percent compared with Q2, when they were reduced by 1.75 percent.

Year-on-year, home prices were down by 4.59 percent in Q3, after having dropped 6.55 percent in Q2. In Q3 2010, the prices slid 5.53 percent y/y. This way, Croatia joined the group of countries in which the annual drop of retail prices was slowed down.

Nominal home prices in Croatia dropped by 0.35 percent in Q3, versus Q2 when they slid 0.81 percent. Year-on-year, they shrank by 2.62 percent, (-4.4 percent in Q2).

5.12.2011 | Author/Source PressCut - (Business.hr)

According to the latest official statistical data in Croatia, the decrease of output by the construction industry continues.

After a 7.5-percent slowdown in September, a fall by 7.4 per cent was seen in October 2011, y/y. Since there was only a slight decrease in the negative trend, it is not possible yet to speak of a turn, since the first ten months of 2011 saw an average fall by 9.4 per cent y/y. The relatively sharp decrease month-on-month was a result of unfavourable weather conditions in the colder part of the year.

Negative trends also maintain in the real estate market, and this contributes further to negative physical indicators in construction. Sales of apartments have been stagnant, as there are no buyers for the existing homes, nor is there demand to build new ones. In line with this, the number of building approvals issued in the first ten months of 2011 decreased by 3.9 per cent y/y.
Author/Source PressCut - (RBA Analysts)

World analysts expect that this year the market will finally touch the bottom, but this is not that bad … Why? Cause this means that next year the recovery starts!
The growth of the real estate market in whole of Europe is expected to start next year, everywhere except in Eastern Europe. Does this mean that Croatia will continue the negative trend in the market? Yes and no. Although Croatia is among the critical countries, our market is still on a some sort of border between East and West from an economic point of view. This means that, depending on the sector of the market, recovery can be expected during the 2011 and 2012.
Investors in Croatia will have to be reconciled with lower rates of return on investments, and banks can expect to have to finance projects through some other models. Large residential projects can be expected in 2012, and the same goes for new shopping centers and office buildings. Further stabilization of prices will also help the recovery of real estate market in Croatia, but that does not mean that all existing apartments will automatically be sold. Regarding industrial property, the situation is quite uncertain and new investments can not be predicted. Tourism should be successful as usually, but here there are also various, mostly legal issues.
In the end, optimism comes from neighboring Slovenia. Apartments market in the first three months grew by over 70 percent! Unfortunately, this trend is not followed by houses.

One of the last ideas was that the state offers financial help to jobless buyers of flats to facilitate the situation by paying their loan rates for a couple of months. The idea was dismissed from the government.

Banks have announced lower interest rates on housing loans and more flexible conditions when approving them. The government has also jumped into the market with incentives that should boost sales. Unfortunately, this leads sellers to believe that a new building can hold unrealistically high prices of flats. It is not constructive and sellers who have demonstrated good will as far as prices are concerned have no problems with sales. Customers are most confused. They are hearing about incentives and favorable conditions for purchase from all sides, but all this has no effect if prices do not fall at least a little.

What about second-hand flats? The situation is colorful. You can get a rather good price, but still there are sellers who sell by all kinds of “strange” criteria because of which their price is unrealistically high. They are convinced that they live in the best location in town, how they are experts for real estate in Croatia, who know exactly how the prices will move in the future, that their furniture is worth more than double the real amount and that the prices on the internet portals are realistic. It is simply not so! If you get a realistic and good offer for an apartment, then accept it, because the market will not have customers packed full of money as it was before the crisis for a long time.

World property market began to slowly recover as the 2009 approached the end, although still showing signs of instability. The report was prepared by the Global Property Guide based on data from 27 countries. The last quarter of 2009 brought growth in real estate prices in 16 countries, while a further 11 recorded a fall, but still yearly price growth was recorded only in 10 countries. This shows that the market is still in crisis.
Although a slight increase in the second half of the year was recorded in many countries, it can not undo a huge drop in the level of the year. Just to mention Latvia (a bit less than 60%), United Arab Emirates (almost 50%), Bulgaria (about 28%), Iceland (a little over 20%), Russia (almost 20%) and Slovakia (approximately 15%).
In relation to the first half of the year, when prices rose in China, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, France, Sweden and Hong Kong, prices have risen in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and South Africa before the end of the year, although it amounts to about 1-3%. Thus, in the U.S. prices rose by 1.2% with the annual decline of 7.5%, but it should be noted that the decline decreased from the beginning to the end of the year, indicating a positive trend of the market. Most successful market is that of Israel, where prices rose at the annual level of over 10%. Recovery and price growth were also achieved in Switzerland, Indonesia and Norway.
The markets in Asia and the Pacific were revived, so Australia recorded a growth of almost 5%, while New Zealand is a little behind with 2%. Hong Kong also recorded an annual growth of 3%, but the other Asian financial giant, Singapore, recorded a significant drop of 11%.
Positive signals for big investors are coming out of Dubai with the growth of 7% in the last three months, although, as already noted, the annual drop is a huge 50%.
The research results clearly indicate that the crisis affected the once fierce developed real estate markets of Western countries and Arab sheiks, while in Asia, where the overall economic growth continued, the growth of the real estate market continued too.

Real estate market in Croatia will be resting in 2010 too. Majority of real estate agencies in Croatia will try to forget 2009 as soon as possible.
Prices on the Rijeka market finally stopped on autumn levels at the end of 2009, which is below approximately 20% lower compared to 2008. Any significant progress in the next period is not expected; sales are stagnating, as well as prices and new construction, which was almost completely blocked in 2009, which in turn led to major problems for many engineers. In addition to engineers, the fall in turnover of almost 60% closed many small real estate agencies, of which many were not seriously engaged in this activity.
The fall in sales started as 2008 approached the end and continued in 2009 with an average drop of 50%.
One reason is the global financial crisis and recession, followed by extremely strict new conditions for bank loans, but perhaps the most problematic is the fact that the owners of flats and houses in Croatia are very rarely willing to adjust prices to market conditions, which leads to a small number of sales. The main reason is the emotions that Croats have for their property.
Customers are also much more cautious than during previous years, so even after finding a property that best suits them they decide to wait for a more favorable moment, which is directly linked to the overall recovery of the Croatian economy.
As for Rijeka and surrounding areas, trade takes place only at the suburban positions, where there has been a significant decline in the cost of square meters, while in the city itself it is very difficult to achieve sales. Most analysts believe that it will be so throughout the whole year, while the slow recovery can be expected only in 2011. All in all, those who survive the year in front of us can expect a lot of work and opportunity in the coming period. The Government could also contribute to the recovery with a more active engagement in the market.
The situation is even more difficult for construction companies and engineers. Building land prices fell by almost 50% and even so they are difficult to sell. New projects are still a long way from starting and the situation could go for the better only for 2-3 years.

Real estate prices are down 7 percent and after negotiations they can drop up to 20 percent. However, it is expected that even lower prices are possible only for low-quality real estate. Furthermore, crisis and recession have extinguished more than 40 percent of Croatian real estate agencies.

The 60 percent drop of sales was too much for a large number of agencies and the situation is so bad that some are even considering not organizing some traditional gatherings at which many agents regularly came before. However, information coming from the market related to a decrease of 60 percent say it is not a realistic figure and that after the final analysis at the end of the year this figure will be around a more tolerable figure of 25 percent. Apart from the crisis, the problem is in the fact that opening the market for foreigners did not lead to more positive developments as was expected, but this is likely due to the crisis too.

We could find some joy in the fact that big European countries have started to slowly emerge from recession. The owners of agencies that had a smart business plan endured the crisis and hope that the situation in 2010 will significantly improve in realtion to 2009. Tourist season already helped the agencies on the Adriatic to achieve a certain income and announcements say it should be even better in the coming months.

As for the prices, they have fallen in all parts of Croatia, but further large drop is unrealistic to expect, especially when it comes to quality real estate in desirable locations. Agency owners hope that banks will not just stand on the side when it comes to the real estate market in Croatia, but that they will release the brakes in credit market policies to provide the market with enough money for recovery and development.

Despite the fact that the decline in prices is slowing down and the recovery that began slowly in some countries as the end of the year is nearing, the global real estate market continues to feel the effects of recession and the financial crisis.
Unlike the situation at the end of 2008 and early 2009 when prices around the world fell to historically low levels, the recovery of markets and prices in the second half of 2009 started in several countries. However, it should be noted that the world property market is still dealing with a lot of big problems. Data from many countries proves this.
The first signs of recovery can be seen in China, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, France, Sweden, Hong Kong, Israel, Switzerland, Indonesia and Norway.
In Portugal the prices increased slightly more than 1 percent. Government subsidies, which are announced in Croatia, are the reason for growth in France, which is slightly higher than 3 percent. A similar percentage can be seen in Sweden. Swiss market opposes crisis since the end of 2008 and prices have risen nearly 5 percent in the first half of this year. Similar situation can be seen in Norway, which also shows a constant increase in prices in 2009. In other European countries a further fall in prices was recorded, ranging from small 1.75 percent in Germany to almost 10 percent in Bulgaria. The biggest drop of more than 26 percent was recorded in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Real estate market in this country is one of the hardest hit by the crisis, with a drop of more than 60 percent this year.
In the U.S. market there was a slower decline, which is quite good if we take into consideration that the United States is where the crisis started. In the second quarter decline was about 14 percent, which is about 4 percent less than the decrease of 18 percent from the first quarter. As for the rest of the world, quite a large drop of almost 50 percent was recorded in Dubai, but we also saw a slower decline in the second quarter there too.
Unlike the rest of Europe and the world, the crisis and the price drop in Croatia were not so drastic, but it is a small and rather open economy, so it is important to follow the events on the international markets.

Croatian courts have a difficult task of selling a large number of houses, flats and small apartment buildings whose owners have failed to meet their obligations to banks.
Owners of mosto properties are mostly citizens, while there is much less companies with similar problems. The value of property that will be offered for auction by the end of 2009. is about 250 million kunas (more than 30 million euros), but it is very likely that the sales will be achieved with a much lower prices, even up to 50% cheaper.
According to statistics over 93% of these procedures that were conducted during the last 5 years were conducted over ordinary citizens and sometimes craftsmen. Most requests for starting the proceedings came from the banks and other financial houses, but a good part often comes from other people or state institutions.
In addition to residential real estate, a number of meadows and fields is also found for auction. Many farmers have in recent years raised large loans for improvement of production, and now are in trouble because they are incapable of returning their debt and must sell the agricultural land.