Two apartments in the same Batumi tower can differ in real cost by tens of thousands of dollars while showing similar list prices, because they are sold at different finish levels. The vocabulary is not standardized, so here is the working translation.
The finish ladder
- Black frame. Bare structure: walls, windows, utilities to the unit boundary. Everything inside is yours to build, including screed and plaster in some cases. The cheapest sticker price and the largest hidden budget.
- White frame. The most common investment condition: plastered walls, screed floors, utility lines into the unit, no finishes. Ready for fit-out, not for living.
- Green frame. A developer-specific term sitting near white frame; definitions vary by project, which is exactly why per-block definitions must be confirmed in writing. Gumbati's Montemar, for example, sells its investment block in green or premium frame with its own definitions.
- Turnkey or renovated. Finished surfaces, doors, plumbing and usually a kitchen, ready to furnish and let. Some projects, like Blue Sky Tower's managed block, sell only turnkey because the hotel operation requires uniform units.
Developers often layer their own tiers on top. Strada in Batumi, for instance, publishes three levels from a white-frame-plus base to full turnkey, with studios starting at 54,000 dollars at the base level.
The comparison mistake almost everyone makes
Comparing a white-frame price per square meter against a turnkey price per square meter tells you nothing. The honest comparison is total cost to rentable condition: list price plus fit-out plus furniture plus the months of rental income you lose while finishing.
Fit-out costs move with materials and labor, so treat any fixed number you read online with suspicion and get current contractor quotes for the specific city and spec. What we can say structurally: the deeper the frame, the more your final cost depends on your own project management, and on a remote purchase that is a real consideration, not a detail.
Which level fits which buyer
- Buying for managed rental: turnkey, and ideally a project where management requires and defines the finish, so the operator cannot blame your fit-out for weak performance.
- Buying to personalize or to your own standard: white frame gives control, on the condition that you can supervise the fit-out or pay someone trustworthy to.
- Buying purely for capital appreciation to resale before completion: frame condition can be rational, since the next buyer may want their own finish, but remember an unfinished unit is illiquid in the meantime.
Read the contract, not the brochure
Finish levels live in the contract annex, not in the showroom. Confirm what exactly is included at your level, per item, and whether the developer's tier names match what you saw. On our project pages we state finish levels in plain terms and flag where a definition still needs confirming, because a finish-level surprise at handover is one of the most common and most avoidable disappointments in this market. Here is how we check these things.
