Three numbers, placed side by side, look like a mistake. Between 2020 and 2025, 36,281 new flats were built in Macedonia. In the 2021 census, 307,187 homes were recorded as unoccupied. And a square metre in Skopje is now being offered at around 2,150 euros - last year the average was around 1,670.

If there is a surplus of flats, why is the price rising? The answer is not in the simple supply-demand equation, and that is precisely why most of the public discussion on this subject misses the point.

What 307,187 actually means

First, an important caveat. The figure is not a current record of flats waiting for a buyer today. It is data from the 2021 census. At the time, 839,174 homes were recorded in the country, of which 531,987 or 63.4 percent were occupied and 307,187 or 36.6 percent unoccupied.

Second, and more importantly - geography. The City of Skopje recorded 213,850 homes, of which 154,550 occupied and 59,300 unoccupied. So most of the national figure is not on the Skopje market at all, which is where the pressure on prices is strongest. The empty flats are where there is no work, and there are no flats where there is.

Third - "unoccupied" does not mean "for sale". A flat can be a second property, an inheritance, a village house used twice a year. A statistical category is not market supply.

Construction is not slowing

In 2024 alone, 7,917 flats were completed. In June of this year alone, permits were issued for another 754. The total floor area built over five years exceeds 3.26 million square metres, with an average of around 90 square metres per unit. Three-room flats dominate at 12,038, followed by two-room flats at 11,129.

Market activity is rising too. In the second quarter of 2026, 8,369 property transactions were registered, 7.9 percent more than in the first quarter. Of those, 6,221 were sales and 2,148 rental contracts. The number of sales jumped by 20.2 percent, while rentals fell by 16.8 percent.

Who buys at these prices

The combination of rising sales and a high number of unoccupied homes suggests something anyone who has looked for a flat in Skopje in recent years has already sensed: part of the property market is not being bought to live in, but as a way of preserving capital.

The records show the range. In the Centar municipality, a new 50-square-metre flat sold for 168,000 euros - around 3,360 euros per square metre. Among older buildings the record is in Ohrid, where a 66-square-metre flat went for 211,200 euros. These are not average prices but the highest individual transactions, and they show where the ceiling now sits.

For the average buyer the maths is simpler and harder. A 60-square-metre flat at today's average costs around 129,000 euros. A year ago, at the then average, the same flat cost nearly 29,000 euros less.

That 29,000-euro difference in one year was not produced by the construction boom and was not produced by the number of empty flats. Something else produced it - and that is the question no ministry has answered publicly so far.