Who this is
The founder runs the advisory side of AVI Estates and is the author of record for most guides on avi.ge. In practice that means meeting clients, building shortlists, negotiating with sellers and developers, and deciding what the site publishes and what it does not. Every page signed by the founder follows the editorial policy: every number has a source and a date, and legal pages go to the partner lawyer before the review notice comes off.
To be added by the team: full name, photo, years working in Georgian real estate, professional background before AVI Estates, languages spoken, LinkedIn or other public profile if the owner wants it linked.
What this author writes
The guides on buying, investing and residency: how a foreigner buys property in Georgia, the residence permit by property, Tbilisi versus Batumi, how to check a developer, and the company pages. Market data pages are prepared with the analyst; legal and tax pages are reviewed by the partner lawyer and the accountant before publication.
How facts are checked
Primary source first
Laws from the Legislative Herald of Georgia, registry rules from the National Agency of Public Registry, fees from the Public Service Hall, tax from the Revenue Service, market figures from Colliers Georgia, Galt & Taggart and TBC Capital.
Recorded with a date
Each fact goes into the facts register with its source and the date it was checked before it appears on a page.
Reviewed where needed
Legal, residency and tax pages carry a review notice until the partner lawyer or accountant has approved them.
Corrected in the open
Corrections are dated in each page's change log. Readers can use the report-an-error page.
Pages signed by this author
Guides are added to this list as they are published.
Contact
Questions about a page or about buying in Georgia: write on WhatsApp, email info@avi.ge or book a free consultation.
How the founder runs a purchase
The founder's part of a purchase begins before the first property is considered and ends after the keys. It begins with the brief: a written statement of what the buyer wants the property to do, what they can spend including finishing, when they want to buy and whether they will travel. The brief is approved by the buyer before any screening starts, and it is the document against which every later decision is measured, so that a shortlist cannot drift towards what is easy to sell. It continues with the negotiation, which the founder conducts in writing where possible so that every price, term and deadline is recorded, and with the sequencing of the deal: the legal check before any money, the contract before any signature, the bank before any payment, the registry before any celebration. It ends with the written confirmations the buyer receives at each step and with the file that lets the whole purchase be reconstructed later. The founder does not run viewings and does not read contracts; the property adviser and the partner lawyer do those, and the founder's job is to make sure they happen in the right order and that the buyer understands what each one found.
What the founder looks for in a property
Four things, in this order, before the price. The purpose fit: does this property do what the brief says, for this buyer, or is it a good property for someone else. The exit: who will buy this apartment in five years, and is that buyer a local family, a foreign investor or a visitor, because the answer decides how easily it can be sold. The building: the entrance, the lifts, the management, the neighbours and the construction next door, which are the things that decide whether an owner is happy in year three. The paper: the cadastral code, the extract, the permit for a new build, and whether the seller is who they say they are. Only then the price, measured against the published context for the district and against the cost of finishing if the apartment is a white frame. A property that passes the first four and fails the fifth can be negotiated; a property that passes the fifth and fails any of the first four is a property to walk away from, and the founder puts that in writing.
Negotiating in the Georgian market
Negotiation in Georgia is personal and fast, and foreign buyers tend to either overpay out of politeness or lose a property by treating a conversation like an auction. The founder's approach is to negotiate on terms as much as on price: the payment schedule, the handover date and the penalty for missing it, the specification annex, what is included, who pays which cost, and the refund conditions of the reservation. A developer who will not move on price will often move on terms, and terms are where a buyer's protection lives. The founder also negotiates with the document in hand: an extract showing an encumbrance, a permit for fewer floors than advertised or a delivery record with late projects are facts that change a price, and the legal check produces them before the negotiation, not after. A buyer is never pressed to decide today; if a seller insists, the founder's advice is usually to let the property go, and that advice is in writing.
Why the founder writes
The guides exist because the same questions arrived in every first conversation and the same mistakes appeared in every third purchase. Writing the answers down with sources turned the first conversation into something useful and made the mistakes rarer. It also changed how the agency works: a rule that has been written down for the public, with a date and a source, is a rule the team cannot bend in a sales conversation without a reader noticing. The guides on buying, investing and residency, together with the company pages, carry the founder's signature because those are the subjects of the founder's daily work, and the founder's name will be on them as soon as the owner publishes the team's details. Until then the signature is a role, which is honest but incomplete, and the yellow box at the top of this page says what is missing.
Questions the founder is asked most
| "Is now a good time to buy?" | The founder does not forecast. The market facts are on the Invest & money page with their sources; whether they make this a good time depends on the buyer's purpose, horizon and alternatives, which the first conversation is for. |
|---|---|
| "Which developer is the best?" | There is no answer without a published method, so the founder gives the delivery record, the permits and the completed buildings of the developers in question and lets the buyer judge. |
| "Can I get the permit if I buy this?" | The permit depends on the appraised value of non-agricultural property and on a file submitted to the Public Service Hall. The founder says whether the threshold is plausibly reached and sends the buyer to the Residency section and to the appraisal. |
| "How much will it earn?" | An estimate from assumptions, which the yield calculator shows. The founder helps choose honest assumptions and refuses to give a single number without them. |
| "Can I do this without coming?" | Yes, by power of attorney with the lawyer present, and it is the standard case rather than the exception. The founder explains what the power of attorney must say and what the buyer will receive at each step. |
| "What do you charge?" | A written quote after the free consultation, with our fee separated from third-party costs, on the basis described on the prices and fees page; the owner's confirmed amounts will be published there. |
Mistakes the founder has watched buyers make
- Paying a reservation before reading anything, on the strength of a discount that expired that evening. The discount was not real; the reservation was.
- Treating a white-frame price as a home price, and discovering the finishing budget after the contract.
- Buying for a permit without an appraisal, with a contract price above the threshold and an appraised value below it.
- Choosing a district from a map, without a visit at the hour when the street is loud, or a video tour at any hour.
- Signing a developer's contract without a delivery penalty, so that a delay cost the developer nothing and the buyer everything.
- Paying to a personal account because the manager was friendly and the bank was slow.
- Buying a village house without checking the land category, and finding the plot agricultural.
Each of these is now a page or a line in a guide, which is the founder's preferred way of making sure a mistake is made only once.
The first week with a new client
The pattern of the first week rarely changes. Day one is the consultation and, the same day, the written summary of it. Day two is the brief, drafted by the founder from the conversation and sent for the client's approval, with the questions that the conversation left open: the exact budget ceiling including finishing, whether a spouse will co-own, which documents the client already has legalised. Day three, once the brief is approved, is the quote, with the fee basis and the expected third-party costs, and nothing starts until it comes back signed. The rest of the week is the screen: the property adviser visits candidates that fit the brief, the founder reviews the visit notes and removes anything that fails the first four tests, and the client receives a note on Friday saying how many properties were considered and how many survived, even if the shortlist itself is not ready. The point of the rhythm is that the client never wonders what is happening; a week with no news is a week in which the founder failed to write.
When the founder says no
Three situations end with the founder declining to proceed, in writing. The first is a buyer who wants a guarantee: of a yield, of a delivery date, of a residence permit. The founder cannot give one honestly, will not pretend to, and would rather lose the client than start a relationship on a promise that will be broken. The second is a buyer who wants to skip the sequence, usually by paying a reservation before the legal check because the seller is pressing; the founder explains once why the order exists and, if the buyer insists, steps back from that purchase. The third is a property that fails the paper test and cannot be fixed: an encumbrance the seller will not clear, a permit that does not match the building, a developer whose record the founder would not accept for their own family. In each case the no is explained and recorded, and the buyer is free to proceed elsewhere; some come back a year later with a different property, which is the best outcome of a no.
Working with the founder
The founder takes the first consultation for most new clients and remains the client's contact person through the purchase, so that the brief, the negotiation and every written confirmation come from one person who knows the whole case. Clients hear from the founder on a fixed rhythm, with a confirmation after every decision and a summary after every stage, and they hear bad news first and from the founder rather than from the seller. The founder works in the languages listed in the yellow box at the top of this page once the owner confirms them, and in English and Georgian in any case; for other languages the client is matched with the colleague who speaks it and the founder stays in the background. A first message on WhatsApp or through the contact page reaches the founder directly.
Change log
- - Profile page created with role description; name, photo and credentials to be added by the owner.