According to RE/MAX Romania press release sent to ACTMedia, world leader in real estate and number one global franchise on this segment, this year’s first half brought a fresh perspective on the real estate market in Romania, seeing a rebound in sales of houses that are still in drafting stage. “One of the trends of the real estate boom period of 2006-2008 returns on the local market. Although buyers these days have different criteria when acquiring a new house, more and more Romanians are choosing to purchase in an early building stage, when it only exists on the drawing board. This behavior is common in particular projects that are very well located”, said Razvan Cuc, Regional Director of RE/MAX Romania. Thus, during the first six months of 2015, the residential real estate market increased by approx. 5%, as demonstrated by the large number of residential projects completed or still under development in all economic centers in the country. “In this first half, we felt a strong effervescence mostly in Bucharest, but also in other major cities such as Cluj-Napoca, Brasov and Iasi. There are many projects under construction and in design stage, which means that in the next months the number of sold units will accelerate”, said Razvan Cuc. Finally, the company’s spokesperson distinguishes a noticeable change regarding the sellers’ behavior, who during the economic crisis, have understood that success requires severe concessions. On the other hand, buyers have become more demanding and adapted their requirements after a conservative reasoning, depending on the available budgets. “We hope that if the real estate boom will make a comeback, the Romanian’s purchasing behavior will remain the current one, rather the one from 2000, when there were many mistakes made during the transactions, most of them related to excessive indebtedness”, added Razvan Cuc. He also underlined the fact that, although Romanians have started again to buy houses from project stage, they first analyze their needs in accordance with their budget and they do not invest in properties that are too big and too expensive, in terms of maintenance. The market will grow above 5% by the end of the year If at the beginning of this year, the specialists estimated a 5% increase both in terms of price and number of transactions, the positive development of the market in the first six month encourages professionals to appreciate an increase of the initial percentage that will be found in the average prices in major cities of the country. “Probably the most important element that led to such positive results was the ease of access to finance. If we look closer, the real estate market’s growth is correlated with the economic growth of the country”, said the company’s representative. Beyond the positive trend in the residential segment, Razvan Cuc underlined the fact that the market’s advance could be observed also on office, retail and logistic segments. # # # RE / MAX is a global leader in real estate being the number one global franchise in this segment. The company, founded in 1973 in Denver, has over 6,300 offices today and over 96.000 agents in 95 countries worldwide. In Europe, RE / MAX is present in 31 countries with 1,500 offices and 12,000 agents and continues its expansion.
The Romanians property market has increased by above 5% since between 2006 and 2008 in terms of the number of transactions and rising house prices, claims MAX . Although the real estate specialist has noted the similarities between this increase and property market growth the beginning of 2015 , these market trends are believed to be characterised by different factors. Currently, home buyers are showing a keener interest in new builds still in the planning stages and are more likely to have conservative budgets, unwilling to acquire debt to purchase expensive homes.