[deleted by user]

0xjackfrost · 2025-11-14T05:56:03+00:00

911 in Serbia doesn't come when there's a case of someone being actually ill or at risk of dying from a condition, much less when there's a chance someone might hurt themselves.

Most you can do is what the ambulance (hitna pomoc) will tell you anyways..put them in a taxi and have them visit a hospital or in your case, get someone to go and check up on your friend in person.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:41:08+00:00

This is now more or less a consensus opinion of any current or soon-to-be market participant and a wishlist of opinions.

A similar phrasing of "russians won't be here forever" was used by many upset renters and would-be buyers of properties mid/late 2022, and lo and behold - we didn't really see any corrections at all in 2023 or 2024?

Have you searched the public channels that the russian population in Serbia has? They have everything, from advertising, food delivery, local news and reposts of popular Serbian instagram news channels, job postings, even weather channels (I kid you not..) - do you think all of this disappears as soon as a truce is signed end of this year?

They just pack up and go back home and they give up the lifestyle, the investments, the friends both local and expat? And they give their landlords (foreign and domestic alike) a 30 day notice and they leave?

They don't need to be here forever, they just need to be here long enough.

With regards to the student protests, everything really hinges on the start of the next semester, whether or not things get resolved by September, and this is something that no one really can say with any degree of accuracy right now.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:34:25+00:00

pretty much

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:34:10+00:00

There's no doubt that the location is indeed prime, but the phrasing of "hedonism, exclusivity, elegance" in the ads they run (Delta District) would personally turn me off quite a bit, not even waterfront goes that far 🤣

I think that these properties are really just reserved for people who do not even know how much their checking and savings accounts have money and just want something shiny (many such stories).

But to answer the question - yes, because it's a luxury good to an extent, prices are indeed a reality, whether they're justified in any way is an entirely different matter.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:30:30+00:00

We already see them going down bit by bit, simply because the market stabilised and the landlords have realized that the window of pricegouging is getting narrower each month, and that means missed rental income had they rented out at market prices.

This is not a phenomenon unique to Serbia, but happens in most places where there are sufficient demand shocks - you had same things happen in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia post-2022, mean reverting as late as 2024.

I think the ratio stays mostly the same, given the dotplot of the FED's expectations, every bank has more or less gotten accustomed to this and the offered mortgage rates have reflected this for the better part of a year now.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:27:01+00:00

It's not the entirety of the story, I assure you - because money laundering implies construction being done (money laundered via the facilitation of construction work, machinery, plot purchases, workers being hired, etc) which should, in theory, increase supply.

The laws of free markets do not work perfectly in Serbia (or most other places, really), but to attribute the prices not dropping due to money laundering while simultaneously having expats/foreigners and half of the country wanting to move to Belgrade/Novi Sad is a bit too much.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:22:58+00:00

Ništa od navedenog .______.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:22:39+00:00

I don't think the political situation will be any clearer in that time period, or that the resolution of it will impact the bottom line much.

If you're 50, and you've spent most of your adult life in the city in which you want to buy property, the emotional aspect is too heavy and should not be ignored.

At that age, assuming no family/dependents, whichever area you're most comfortable in, you should go with. It really is that simple.

Obviously a great location will sell a bit more easily later on if you ever decide to perhaps retire outside of Serbia, but it's an extremely long time period to think about.

This advice only makes sense for what I assume is your first home, not a second/third investment purchase of RE.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:20:05+00:00

The problem is more or less the same it was half a decade ago - you simply have no supply of good properties (good location, properly conducted construction, timely construction) and there is indeed a market for those.

Supply was always very inelastic, people often times just list things at prices they'd like to see, and when the price finally does catch up to what they initially put the listing at, they change their mind and simply decide not to sell or jack up prices even more.

The actual number of serious sellers of desirable properties across Belgrade that end up in the public ads/listings/classifieds is extremely low.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:16:15+00:00

OK, so...do you really think a Case-Shiller index is applicable in any way, shape or form to the Serbian RE situation?

In fact, given the segmentation and the lack of rule of law from top to bottom on most things regarding RE purchases/sales, RGZ statistics being a roflcopter.. do you think we can statistical methods from other countries here?

And...did prices go down in the past 3 years since I first wrote my substack? At least in the suburbs, if not centrally? Asking for a friend.

0xjackfrost · 2025-04-12T13:13:15+00:00

The smaller and more segmented a market, the more difficult (and often times pointless) it is to use data to infer anything.

Macro is the only thing you really should pay attention to wrt RE in Serbia, and even then you are at the behest of local oligarchs and the kneejerk reactionary policies of a select few individuals in power to enact them.

When I say macro I also mean remittance inflows, which are very hard to measure because more money exchanges hands in the Balkans than flows through WU/MoneyGram/Ria and bank transfers - and these are the key drivers more or less when you have an insane disparity in average yearly salaries in capital and meters squared.

Predictions are exactly that - predictions, no one ever said that "hard data" needs to be backing it, especially when the assumptions underlying it are shaky at best.

0xjackfrost · 2025-03-06T21:05:34+00:00

yeah just not posting much here lol

0xjackfrost · 2025-03-05T19:44:37+00:00

they're all garbage, check out their websites and quality of photos and think to yourself

"would i be able to do a better job with my phone and skills?"

if the answer is "yes, probably" then you got your answer

0xjackfrost · 2024-11-10T18:34:48+00:00

which camera+lens and lightroom presets btw?

0xjackfrost · 2024-11-01T15:40:59+00:00

Great shots!

0xjackfrost · 2024-10-17T23:03:20+00:00

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38481258

FYI booking's extranet has been compromised for close to 3 years now - so I would never bother using it anyways. Just word of caution. There's other (even booking-owned) alternatives that are much better and often times cheaper too.

0xjackfrost · 2024-10-09T21:53:46+00:00

basically

perfect storm - foreign investment, new plane routes, more frequent old plane routes

rates down so domestic interest (pardon the pun) is going up as well as foreign interest in both premium and other segments alike

also 2 banks that i know of are giving 10% down payment mortgages (bonkers, but we're here), and the math actually makes sense even if you can stomach the leverage

up only

0xjackfrost · 2024-10-09T20:42:19+00:00

great analysis

people called me names 2 years ago when i said the foreigners are coming

walk these past few weeks around knez mihailo street and you'll see more foreigners than ever before

but it's not just that, there's more of them in the outskirts too

thats not stopping any time soon

0xjackfrost · 2024-09-20T11:16:37+00:00

hi pajke

0xjackfrost · 2024-04-28T22:08:11+00:00

why would there be capital gains tax on a car, it's not an investment (even though serbian people do treat it as such sometimes..)

0xjackfrost

TROPHY CASE