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19th Century Stone Villa on the Montenegrin Coast
$1.8 MILLION (1.5 MILLION EURO)
This semi-detached, four-bedroom gem villa It is in Lepetane, a seaside village just north of the town of Tivit in southwest Montenegro.
Built in 1820 and renovated five years ago, the 2,443 square meter villa is located across a local road from the Bay of Kotor, a tourist haven surrounded by mountains that spill into the Adriatic Sea. Boris Darmanovic, brokerage manager of the listed Montenegro Sotheby’s International Realty, said the “cocoon” design within a historic façade blends traditional Montenegrin construction with contemporary architecture and modern interior design solutions.
Using metal bridges to connect the sliding glass doors in the second-floor bedrooms to the exterior walls, Darmanovic said the architect “brings an unexpected amount of light into the house”. “This is not typical for homes.”
Entry is through a double arched wooden door in the stone wall surrounding the paved, ground-level courtyard on the left side of the house.
The front door, which is reached by a flight of stairs, opens into a large room with classic Montenegrin stone walls and tiled floors. A curved floating leather section overlooks a fireplace with a television mounted above it. At one end is a dining table lit by twin drum chandeliers. The house is sold furnished.
From the front door to the left, an arch leads to the kitchen with stone walls and a stone gable ceiling. An island is equipped with a white marble countertop, sink and stove. Along a cabinet wall is a refrigerator, oven, and camouflaged powder chamber. A back door opens onto a large terrace with a summer kitchen with barbecue.
From the kitchen, a spiral staircase leads down to the spa on the ground floor. The heated indoor pool has a ceramic coating and a white marble coating. Opposite the tiled floor is a sauna, Turkish steam room and bathroom with shower. Double doors in front of the pool room open to a walled outdoor terrace close to the road.
The study on the ground floor can be used as a bedroom and opens onto a courtyard with an antique stone sink and firewood storage corner. The one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment has a separate entrance for guests or staff.
The wide hall of the second floor has a door opening to the side terrace. Sliding canopies installed under the solar panels for hot water protect the porch. Two bedrooms, each with oak floors and sliding glass doors, share a hall bathroom. A four-metre external bridge connects the bedrooms through the glass doors to the window-sized openings and decorative louvers (but without glass) of the façade. Because there is no roof over the opening, sunlight (and rain) gets in.
The attic primary bedroom suite has oak floors and sloping walls with wood beams. Sliding door opens to a balcony with bay view.
There is parking for two cars on the beach across the road. The stone wall and sloping pebble area serve as the beach and there is mooring for a 30-metre boat.
The house is just over a mile from the center of Tivat and Porto Montenegro, a marina with luxury residences, luxury restaurants, branded shops and a boutique hotel. The fortified town of Kotor, a UNESCO World Heritage site with a labyrinth of coastal churches and cobblestone streets, is a 25-minute drive away. Tivat International Airport is 20 minutes away.
market overview
In Montenegro, a country of 660,000 inhabitants, the pandemic “damaged the economy more than any other country in the region, causing a 15 percent drop in GDP” and caused unemployment to rise from 15.3 percent to 20 percent. US State Department report.
Kieran Kelleher, managing director of Dream Estates Montenegro, a Savills subsidiary, said the number of transactions at his firm fell 55 to 60 percent last year, but prices fell 10 to 15 percent less worryingly. “We predicted a bigger drop in prices because of the coronavirus,” he said, but it didn’t happen, “mainly because the developers knew it was better to wait.”
Last fall, Leila Calic, director of Resido Montenegro, noticed “a significant increase in requests to relocate to Montenegro full-time”. Long-term leases and acquisitions began to accelerate in December and have not stopped.
“I don’t remember a summer when we were this busy with purchase requests,” said Çaliç, adding that shoppers often look at them while on vacation. “This summer is different. They’re coming to buy.”
Niko Lakovic, managing partner and head of sales at Sotheby’s International Realty in Montenegro, said 2021 was “booming and people are buying second homes”.
Inquiries in Mr. Lakovic’s office increased by 500 percent, and the number of sales on the Montenegrin coast “increased by 60 to 70 percent compared to last season, when we were almost completely closed to arrivals,” he said. Prices are currently at the same level as in 2019, but “demand is very high”.
Currently, prices for villas are “pretty stable”, but new apartments have increased by at least 10 to 15 percent, in part due to the high cost of building materials. “Construction is really dynamic,” said Ms. Çalic.
Mr Kelleher said foreigners make up 99 percent of buyers in the “top” or top 2 percent of the market, noting that prices range from 7,500 to 10,000 euros per square metre, or ($825 to 1,100 dollars) for the seaside. properties and “within fancy new resorts”.
Far from Montenegro’s Adriatic coast, the “non-prime market” of smaller apartments is “quite durable” and “better suited to locals, but foreigners buy there too,” Mr Kelleher said. Prices range from 2,000 to 2,500 euros per square metre, or (220 to $275 per square metre).
Lofts, townhouses and villas in luxury marina developments such as Porto Montenegro and Portonovi are sold alongside traditional Montenegrin stone houses by the sea.
“People are buying good properties and buying larger properties and seaside homes,” Mr. Lakovic said. On the higher end, prices run up to $10 million for a three-bedroom beach house.
However, Montenegro Real Estate Manager Mark Wilde warned that house prices are unstable. If two houses are for sale next to each other, “one is twice the price of the other. The hardest part is finding a property at the right price.”
Who to Buy in Montenegro
Representatives said buyers come from the United States, Canada, Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Western Europe, China, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries.
“The Russians are still coming, but not as much as in the past,” said Ms. Çalic.
Mr Wilde said some American buyers who left as children are returning. “People who go to America and make a lot of money come here and buy a second home,” he said. “We even get people who come back and buy their old family home.”
Currently, about half of buyers from the United States, China and the Middle East use a Citizenship by Investment program that pays a minimum of €450,000 ($535,000) for coastal properties or €250,000 ($297,000) for new hotel development units on the ski resort. the northern region, plus a government fee of 100,000 Euros ($119,000) for the golden passport. But Mr Kelleher said a new coalition government, replacing the pro-Western Socialist Democratic Party, which has ruled the small Balkan country for 29 years, could shelve the program.
Mr Lakovic said the personal and corporate tax rates of 9 percent are still an “incentive” for buyers. Montenegro, which declared its independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006 and joined NATO in 2017, expects to join the European Union by 2025.
Purchasing Basics
There are no restrictions for foreign buyers. Mr. Lakovic said that direct home purchases can be made without establishing a company.
There is no property transfer tax on a new property purchased from a developer; Mr Kelleher said a 3 percent transfer tax is paid on resales.
Although notaries handle closures, attorneys can be used to draw up complex contracts and are a must “to make sure everything is done properly,” said Mr Kelleher. He added that it is difficult for foreigners to get mortgages.
websites
Languages and Currency
Montenegrin, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian and Croatian; euro (1 euro = 1.19 dollars)
taxes and fees
Property taxes for this home are about 1,200 Euros ($1,425) per year.
To contact
Niko Lakovic, Montenegro Sotheby’s International Realty 011-382-67-310-006; sothebysrealty.me
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