Three thousand three hundred and sixty euros per square metre. That was the highest price reached for a new apartment in central Skopje in the second quarter of this year, according to the price and rent register of the Real Estate Cadastre Agency. The most expensive new apartment sold by a developer is in the municipality of Centar - 50 square metres for 168,000 euros.

For older housing stock the record is not in Skopje. It is in Ohrid, where a 66-square-metre apartment sold for 211,200 euros, or 3,200 euros per square metre.

The market is not cooling. It is heating up.

Between April and June, 8,369 sales and leases were registered, 7.9 percent more than in the first quarter. But the value is rising far faster than the count: total transaction value reached 351.7 million euros, up 27.3 percent.

That gap is the whole story. The number of transactions rises by about eight percent, the money by more than twenty-seven. So people are not buying much more - they are paying much more for the same thing.

New builds show the sharpest movement. Developers sold 943 apartments, 231 more, or 32 percent up on the first quarter. In total 977 developer sales were registered, 34 of them houses. The number of apartments sold rose 37 percent and their total value 43 percent. The most active market is the municipality of Aerodrom with 297 apartments sold and 600 transactions overall, followed by Centar with 571 and Karpoš with 486.

And now the uncomfortable part: rents are falling

While sales heat up, the rental market is cooling. The second quarter saw 2,148 leases registered, a drop of 17 percent. Business premises were rented most - 935 - followed by apartments at 630. For rental apartments the count fell 14 percent and total monthly rent by nine percent. The most expensive rental square metre is in Centar, averaging 408 denars a month, then Aerodrom at 375 and Karpoš at 354.

That is a combination worth holding on to: record purchase prices, and fewer, cheaper rentals. If buying were driven by strong demand for somewhere to live, rents would not be falling at the same time. When sale prices fly and rents shrink, it means part of the buying is not for living in - it is for holding.

The cadastre has 28,352 construction pre-registration sheets on file. So thousands of apartments are at various stages of construction and have yet to hit the market. By any economic logic, more supply should push prices down. Will that happen, or will the new apartments simply join the same logic?

Forty-seven keys at the opposite end of the story

The same week the square metre broke the 3,000-euro barrier, 47 socially vulnerable families in Debar received new apartments. They are intended for the most vulnerable categories - people who grew up without parents, recipients of guaranteed minimum assistance, people affected by natural disasters, people with disabilities and their families, members of the Roma community and single parents with children.

Deputy prime minister and transport minister Aleksandar Nikoloski said social housing has so far been allocated in Veles, Kočani, Strumica and Gevgelija, with projects under way in Probištip, Sveti Nikole, Butel, Saraj and Prilep.

Forty-seven families got a key. In the same quarter, Aerodrom alone sold 297 apartments. That does not make the social housing worth less - it simply shows the scale at which the two markets operate. One is measured in hundreds of sales a quarter and hundreds of millions of euros in turnover. The other in forty-seven keys at a municipal ceremony.