From daily renting, it is now moving again to long-term renting

2024-04-07 08:19:00, Ekonomi CNA

From daily renting, it is now moving again to long-term renting

Illustrative photo

Many foreigners who previously preferred to have a residential house in Saranda, oriented towards cheaper prices than the regional markets this year, due to high prices, according to Eron Çumani, from the real estate agency "Saranda Property" are shift the demand towards the acquisition of properties for rent with a term of up to one year.

The increase in supply is also found in the market. According to Mr. Cumani, this was completely influenced by the legal changes for the formalization of daily rent.

"The long-term rental market has started to activate. Many foreign citizens are oriented towards the request for rental properties with a term of 6 to 12 months. More small 1+1 apartments wanted. These properties were not previously rented long-term by the owners.

The offer this year has increased, as some owners do not want to be registered on international daily rental platforms after legal changes for the formalization of the market and investment opportunities see long-term rental," he asserted.

Stela Dhami, from the international real estate agency "Colliers Albania", said earlier that the last months of last year would be a test period for the owners of these properties that then a part of them, due to the impossibility of management, will rethink the strategy to position the properties as part of the long-term market.

From November 1, 2023, following the request of the Albanian authorities, the Booking platform, through an announcement, asked apartment owners that if they do not declare the NIPT, they will pay 20% VAT for the commissions that Booking holds. For example, if the daily rent of a house is 100 euros, Booking usually receives 12-18% commission, or 12-18 euros.

Booking will now keep the VAT from the apartment owners on the commission it receives, ie 20% of the 12-18 euros, or an additional 2.4-3.6 euros. Booking will then pay this amount to the Albanian fiscal authorities.

While the amount that Booking will keep as VAT on the commissions may not be very high, the intention of Taxation was to identify individuals registered on this platform through these payments, since the data from the payments made by Booking will are sent to the Tax Directorate.

After identification by Taxes, individual owners have two alternatives:

First, they can continue to maintain the status they have, ie. not register in Taxes, but in the meantime they have to pay 15% as tax on the income they receive from the rent.

Second, to register as a categorized commercial entity, as an accommodation structure for which the VAT liability is 6%./Monitor