Research & Insights

The first quarter of 2020 has been defined by COVID-19. The pandemic has caused a global healthcare and economic crisis, with the full effects of the latter slowly becoming apparent. At the time of writing – June 2020 – all major restrictions have been lifted in Georgia and the population is slowly adjusting to the new normal. 

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on Batumi residential real estate market. First the sharp decline in the number of incoming tourists (who typically generate the largest streams of residential sales revenue) and later, the travel restrictions of April caused the sectoral growth to come to a standstill. To gauge perspectives of Batumi developers on the effects of COVID-19, the present situation and the planned recovery measures, we conducted a set of interviews with representatives of the largest companies on the market.

Participants were sampled purposively and chose to remain anonymous. To supplement our survey findings, we also analyzed transactional data for January-May 2020 and compared annual and monthly growth trends to those of the years past. In the following pages, we discuss our finding as we try to chart the 2020 trajectory of the Batumi residential market.