Istria County

National sales fell -21.6% in 2025, but that doesn't mean fewer people want to buy. Most owners do not treat property as a tradable asset — they live in it, rent it out, or hold it for the next generation.

Anyone who bought in 2018–2022 is sitting on 40–80% paper gains. Selling means triggering capital decisions, finding a replacement home in the same hot market, and (often) trading a sub-3% legacy mortgage for a 4–5% new one. Most simply don't list. The result is a shrinking float of available stock — the same pattern seen in the US ("rate lock") and Germany ("Bestandsmieten").

So: fewer transactions + flat or rising prices = supply contraction, not demand collapse.

Two different numbers circulate in Croatian property reporting:

• Asking price (Njuškalo, Nekretnine.hr): what sellers hope to get. Typically 4–8% above achieved.
• Achieved / closed price (MPGI/EIZ from Land Registry sales): what was actually paid and registered.

Our €/m² figures from MPGI are achieved medians. Portal asking prices you see while browsing will look higher. Always ask agents for the last 3 closed comparable sales. The gap widens in slowing markets (more negotiation room) and narrows in hot ones.

Despite the national -21.6% drop, a handful of counties bucked the trend:

• City of Zagreb — apartment sales held near 2024 levels (≈7,600), the largest active urban market.
• Krapina-Zagorje (+11%) and Karlovac (+17%) — Zagreb commuter spillover as buyers priced out of the capital move outward.
• Vukovar-Srijem and Bjelovar-Bilogora — coming off very low bases, double-digit growth from cheap entry prices and state-aid programmes.

The pattern is clear: Zagreb metro and its commuter ring stay liquid; the coast cooled from record 2022–2023 highs but prices kept rising on shrinking supply.