Romanian real estate market … an anomaly of a business model
- Posted by Magda on February 4th, 2007 filed in Homes and housing, Services
I don’t even know where to start talking about this. The real estate market in Romania post EU accession looks pretty bad. That means it languishes. Nobody sells, nobody buys. If you talk to developers the prices escalated by about 20 % in January. If you ask real estate agents, they will tell you that nobody is paying those artificially inflated prices, because buyers are hoping the prices will go back to where they were. So, what are the real prices for real estate? The fact that nobody can say for sure, creates opportunity for a lot of assumptions and the lack of reliable information gives advantage to the speculators. I am on the market for making some real estate investments and I feel like I am in the jungle. I need survival skills and better access to information. I would love to have an online reliable place where I can find correct information. At this time, I waste a lot of energy searching for properties. If I think I found one that I like and I call the agency most times they tell me that the particular offer was sold, but they will look for something else for me. Five out of six times they do not call back, and when they do, the offer they come up with, is far out of the ballpark I was looking for.
In US, the system is different and human friendly: if I look for a house I work with one agent and that helps us create a relationship. Either I or my agent would find a req # of an interesting property (any property that’s posted on the web or in the newspaper) and with that, my agent will collaborate with the agency who has the offer so I can see it. It’s less work for the agent, less work for you, it creates some type of loyalty between the buyer and the agent and it saves time for everyone. I would love to have that here. A restructuring is needed on the real estate market and a re-strategizing of the business model will probably revive the whole sector. Stagnation is not a good sign.
Written by Magda
February 6th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I know exactly what you’re saying… I’ve been trying to buy an apartment since August, but… no luck. YET
June 7th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Unfortunatley the regulations in Romania don’t allow for the publication of acurate comparable sales history like most civilized countries. Maybe this is becuase the government doesn’t have this information on a computer yet?
I have been to the cadestral office in Bucuresti and purchased very basic specific property information after providing the Cadestral Plan numbers. (Yes you need to find these first… GOOD LUCK!)I need the property owners notarised, stamped and sealed approval if I want any further detials at a higher fee and 2 or 3 weeks wait.
I also have access to the same data sources as the romanian real estate agents to search for properties and comparable sales. (I subscribe to 3 different specialized resources) All these systems are a joke, un-audited and never up-to-date. So unfortunately you cannot blame the agent for bad sources of data, but the agent should learn some customer service skills and let you know how things work in Romania before they lead you down the garden path.
The resources available to the average consumer are not much better. The systems running the public websites to search for property are very basic to say the least and once again, un-audited and never up-to-date. It seems that most agents leave the handful of listing they have on these sites (Or make them up) just to attract potential purchasers whether the are for sale or sold 2 years ago.
I could see the benefit from the agents perspective, if only they actually knew how to return a phone call and provide a little customer service… but what the heck “this is Romania” huh!
From the website portal providers perspectives, who openly advertise the 200,000 plus listings they have available for you to choose from, it makes there site look really well used and the place to search for real estate in Romania.
However, from a economical and market perspective, I couldn’t understand why Romania property prices are so damn high when every property is for sale in country? Are ther more than 200,000 homes in Romania when 5 or 6 people live in a 1 room apartments?
Cynical I have become, but not without a pile of good reasons. Doing business in Romania is time consuming with forest depleting amounts of paper work, bureaucracy and spending hours in long lines for what seem ridiculous and un-necessary taks.
With 12 months business planning, research and personal experience in the problems faced by consumers when buying real estate in Romania, hopefully in the near future you will see a dramatic shift in the resources available to consumers with accurate, up-to-date, precise information. We have a technology team working on some serious solutions for the exact problems you have encountered.
Lets just hope the Romanian mentality doesn’t impede progress and let Romanian consumers enjoy the freedom and ease of doing business like they do in other countries.
BTW, As a foreigner living and conducting business here, I really do like Romania!
June 10th, 2007 at 8:36 am
[...] Mark wrote in a comment to an earlier post on Real Estate shopping woes in Romania… [...]
June 10th, 2007 at 8:39 am
I responded to Mark’s comment in:
http://www.businessideas.ro/better-real-estate-information-for-romania/