Skopje, October 8 — The price of apartments in Skopje has been continuously increasing recently, reaching record highs. However, many citizens, both locals and expats, have no idea how prices per square meter are fluctuating.
Through the new platform CenaKvadrat, citizens now have the opportunity to get informed about the approximate price trends and additionally check the rental prices for apartments.
Software engineer Dimitar Bezhanovski explains to Skopje.IN that the platform provides an analysis of trends and prices in the market, based on data from real public listings.
“This way, there is no way anyone can tinker with the information. The platform is a factual representation of the Skopje real estate market”, Bezhanovski says.
He was inspired to create the project because, as he says, both he and many others have the problem of not knowing the current price trends of apartments.
Most of this information is, as he mentions, shared via word of mouth, which can lead to incorrect assessments.
“The only accurate way is to analyze what is being listed and sold. That’s when I decided I should build this app to help fellow citizens get a better understanding of the current prices and trends”, he adds.
Bezhanovski explains that he is always improving the data-gathering process, adding that it is crucial to gather as much data as possible, but the data needs to be "clean".
“I put immense effort into gathering as much quality data as possible. The data I currently use comes from listings with valid parameters. In the near future, I will also include Facebook group data in these analyses”, he announced.
Currently, the platform focuses only on apartment sales. When asked whether he had considered including other types of real estate for sale, such as houses or commercial spaces, he didn’t rule out the possibility in the future.
“When I started this app I first wanted to focus on a single problem. Most of us, live in apartments or will live in apartments. It is a crucial problem that needs the most attention. That is why for now I will mainly focus on apartments. Other real estate types are also attractive, but for most of us we focus on buying an apartment rather than a house”, the software engineer adds.
The project’s future plans are to make the platform a place that is go-to for looking at ‘when you have any type of real estate need, whether it is buying an apartment, renting one, seeing which locations have the best prices'.
“My goal is to make it the most useful tool for real estate customers. I also launched a mortgage calculator which gives a comprehensive analysis of mortgages. This way when people get a loan for an apartment they can first use the platform to get the details of the loan. They can see how much the interest takes up on the loan, get in depth data about the monthly payments and decide if the loan is a good option for them. A lot of banks use marketing and do not mention how high the interest can be even though it sounds like a small number. With CenaKvadrat, they will have a guide on what is the best approach for a loan”, Bezhanovski says.
He announces that in the future, the platform will have even more tools for users, adding that he also plans to launch apartment listings on the platform, which will be only high-quality listings with as many pictures and documentation as possible.