Batumi by district: $3,146 a square metre in the old town, $1,787 inland

The spread inside Batumi is wider than the gap between many cities. Old Batumi at $3,146 a square metre and inner-city districts at $1,787 are the same municipality, the same legal process and the same tax treatment, roughly 76% apart on price. The seafront strip sits in between: Alley of Heroes at $2,081, New Boulevard at $1,819, Gonio and Kvariati at $2,075. Anyone quoting you an average price for Batumi is describing a city that does not exist in any single street.

Primary-market stock averaged $1,893 a square metre in March against $1,479 on the secondary market. That is roughly a 28% premium for buying from a developer rather than from an owner, and both figures had risen by a similar amount over the year, 8.7% and 7.8%. For a seller the useful implication is that your resale flat is benchmarked against the secondary number, not the glossy new-build price down the road. For a buyer it is a straight question: is the finish, the warranty and the payment plan worth 28%, given that the day you resell you join the secondary market.

First-quarter transactions were concentrated in a handful of places. New Boulevard alone recorded 1,671 sales, up 22.3%, with Alley of Heroes at 811. Makhinjauri grew fastest in percentage terms, 317 sales and up 68.6%, and Kobuleti recorded 120. Peripheral locations went the other way, 416 sales and down 19.5%. Growth in the quarter was 15.8% overall, so the headline rise hides a market narrowing onto the seafront and the corridor just north of the city while the edges thin out.

These are averages from one survey covering part of the market, published in June and describing March, so treat them as a map rather than a valuation. The practical use is comparison: before you accept a price, find what the same survey says about that district and ask the seller to explain any gap in terms of floor, view, finish and building age. A flat priced like Old Batumi in a district averaging $1,787 is not automatically overpriced, but it needs a reason, and asking for the reason costs nothing.