Three institutions, three families of data
The national statistics office Geostat publishes price indices, including a housing price index and construction-related series. The national tourism administration publishes visitor arrival statistics for the country. The National Bank of Georgia publishes official lari exchange rates every day. Three public, dated sources, accessible to everyone — that is more than in many emerging markets.
The decisive limit of the price index
Geostat's housing price index does not cover the territory in a national, exhaustive way: its coverage focuses notably on Tbilisi and on defined segments. The direct consequence: no numerical comparison between Tbilisi and Batumi can be presented as an official statistic, and no "X% increase" in Batumi rests on a complete public series. The figures you read elsewhere almost always come from aggregates of listings — asking prices, not transactions.
The limit of tourism statistics
National tourism arrivals shed light on an overall dynamic. They say nothing about the occupancy rate of any given property: between the country and your apartment lie the precise location, the quality of the operation, competition from the building next door, and the season. A sales pitch that "proves" your future studio's occupancy using the national arrivals curve is confusing two different scales.
The right way to use this data
Use the central bank's official rates as a dated reference for conversion — never as a forecast.
Use the Geostat indices to understand an underlying trend within their covered scope — never for a neighbourhood they do not cover.
Use tourism arrivals to understand seasonality — never to promise occupancy.
For any commercial figure, demand the source and the date — and treat a lack of answer as an answer.
Why does your site publish no price per square metre?
Because no official source covers these markets exhaustively, and we refuse to present aggregates of listings as data. We put figures on specific developments, supporting documents included, within our personalised selections.
Is an unsourced figure necessarily false?
No — it is unverifiable, which is enough not to base a decision on it. An investor doesn't need a figure to be false in order to be cautious: they need it to be true in order to commit.