The real estate market in Romania and especially that in its capital city, Bucharest, has registered impressive growth in the last year with expectations for 2015 being quite high. After a period of seemingly endless stagnation with little to no reason for optimism, it seems that the real estate market registered a much needed growth in 2014. While there are numerous reasons behind the growth, some of the most important are the reduced price for basic materials, the abundance of qualified and unqualified labor as well as the easier to obtain funding and state run projects that aimed to encourage young home ownership and the market in general.
Spring 2015 has also led to more growth with March showing a rise in the number of construction papers released by state authorities with a total of 3.253 being released according to the INS (National Statistics Institute). Of these 3.253 authorizations 62.3 percent were released for rural housing, marking a clear trend that shows crowded city dwellers are retiring and moving to the less polluted, less dense rural part of the country. According to the INS, growth has been registered in all regions with the most significant being in the capital city, Bucharest.
Growth in Bucharest and Ilfov County is marked by an extra 238 released authorizations. The second development region in Romania according to INS data was North-East with an extra 144 authorizations while the Center Region registered a growth of 134 build authorizations. Sud-Muntenia Region had an extra 124 authorizations while the North West Region had a growth of 120 authorizations.
Residential building authorization has also registered impressive growth with the richest regions in the country having the most new projects. Bucharest and Ilfov County lead again with an extra 90 residential building authorizations followed by North East with an extra 53 authorizations, North West with 40 authorizations and South East with an extra 3 authorizations. Decreases were registered in the South West Region with 56 fewer authorizations, South Muntenia Region with 21 fewer authorizations and the Center Region with 9 fewer authorizations according to data from the INS.
Requests for authorizations have also grown in the first quarter of 2015 with 7.176 new documents being found, marking a 3 percent rise from the first quarter of 2014. Growth was seen for Bucuresti Ilfov with an extra 152 authorizations, North West with an extra 114 authorizations, North East with an extra 99 authorizations, South East with an extra 83 authorizations as well as South Muntenia with an extra 32 authorizations.
