4 November 2025
A New Boulevard studio beside an Old Town mixed-use floor
Putting two very different keys on one board is the usual family request. The sheet has to keep their calendars and their stairs separate or the comparison becomes a quarrel.
The request sounds simple: show us which asset works. On the table sit a New Boulevard studio bought off-plan and an Old Town floor with a grocer below and a two-room flat above. Both are in Batumi. That is almost all they share.
The studio fills through agencies in June and empties when the sea wind turns. Its costs are a service charge and a concierge who may or may not accept keys after dark. The Old Town floor collects a shop rent that is paid in cash more often than anyone writes down, and a flat whose tenant has been there so long that the family treats the rent as a personality.
How the board keeps them apart
We refuse a single yield line for “Batumi.” Each key gets its own strip: occupancy, signed rent, asking notices on the same street that week, and a caption about access. The studio strip mentions shoulder season. The shop strip mentions whether the service stair was open on the walk.
Only after both strips exist do we put them on facing pages. Families who wanted a winner still get one, but they have to choose a criterion: cash this quarter, vacancy days, or the fight they will inherit. We do not choose it for them.
A practical note on comparables
Asking prices on the New Boulevard move with the season of the listing photograph. Old Town shop rents are slower and often verbal. Dating the notices is the only way the two columns stay honest. A studio listed in August at one figure and still listed in November at the same figure is information; it is not a sale.