The average price for residential properties increased by almost 8% nationally in the first quarter of 2024, compared to the similar interval in 2023, up to the value of 1,563 euros/useful square meter, the most expensive city for buyers remaining Cluj-Napoca, with a average asking price for homes put up for sale of 2,631 euros/useful square meter, according to the latest market report carried out by the Imobiliare.ro website. The second position in the national ranking is occupied by Braşov, with an average of 1,789 euros/useful square meter, while Bucharest is only in fifth place, with 1,578 euros/useful square meter.
“With the return of demand, real estate prices are increasing. Moreover, an additional pressure is generated by the decrease in supply, which not only can, but certainly will put pressure on prices, especially since the long-awaited moment of lowering interest rates is near. These things, combined with the unbridled appetite for owner status, risk keeping uneducated buyers in the zone of compromise developments – in terms of quality, location, surfaces – and of peripheral projects, many and cheap, whose value is not only that it will not grow over time, but will remain absolutely ridiculous. Attention to the price compromise! The capital is full of such examples, which, moreover, largely explains why Bucharest is surpassed by Cluj-Napoca, Brasov and soon by all the secondary cities, although it has whole neighborhoods with an average price of almost 3,000 euros/sqm”said Daniel Crainic, Imobiliare.ro marketing director.
An increase of 5.2% could also be observed in real estate transactions. Between January and March, almost 145,500 houses, plots and apartments were sold nationally, according to the data of the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising. A spectacular evolution was registered in the case of Iaşi county, where almost 7,600 properties were sold, a fact that helped it surpass Timiş, Braşov, Cluj and Constanţa.
The longest sales period was recorded, in the case of apartments, in Cluj-Napoca and Constanţa, according to Imobiliare.ro data, and the homes in Timisoara found their buyers the fastest at the beginning of this year.
In the first three months of this year, many of the buyers focused their attention, as a priority, on new homes, completed starting in 2020, Imobiliare.ro data show. However, the old market is gaining ground in many of the big cities. For every old house in Bucharest or apartment located in a block built before 2020, there were two potential buyers on the market, while for every new house in Constanta four potential buyers showed their interest. The only big city where the offer at sale increased at the beginning of the year was Brasov. Buyers had a choice of 6,100 houses and apartments, 2% more than at the beginning of last year. At the opposite pole was the Capital, where the supply of housing decreased by almost 20%. Even under these conditions, Bucharest has no rival at the national level. From a total of 88,900 houses and apartments listed for sale in the six largest cities in the country, more than half were in the capital, the analysis reveals.
The negotiation margin – calculated as the percentage difference between the transaction price and the last price requested from the buyer – is, in reality, quite small in the main cities of the country. Owners from Braşov and Iaşi, for example, are less willing to let the price down than those from Cluj-Napoca or Timisoara. If in the first cities we are talking about a negotiation margin of 2.4%, in the two largest regional centers in the west of the country it reaches 3.5%, according to the data analyzed by Imobiliare.ro. On the Bucharest residential market, at the beginning of this year we find a negotiation margin of 3.9%, while in the case of the owners in Constanţa, we note that it reaches the highest level among the big cities, at 4.2%.
