Survey: Land Prices Down 16% In 1Q

05.16.2011 By Andrei Circhelan

Owners of inner city land for residential project development in Romania continued to decrease prices in the first quarter of the year, by up to 16%, under the pressure still felt from the economic crisis, according to realty ad portal imobiliare.ro.

"Inner city plots are still in recession and prices are still registering some significant decreases," the company said in a news release.

On the other hand, apartment prices rose by an average 0.97% in the first quarter, since the beginning of the year, to EUR1,043 per sqm.

As opposed to apartment prices, the asking prices for houses and villas built before 1990 continued to decrease in the first quarter, especially in Timisoara where they dropped 14% in the first quarter, Bucharest (-8.4%) and Constanta (-6.8%).

Houses and villas built after 1990 saw a mostly downward evolution in prices as well, especially in Constanta (-7.2%), Bucharest (-3.7%) and Cluj-Napoca (-1.8%).

The only residential segment who still seems far from recovery is the land market, as prices dropped 15.8% in Brasov, 13.7% in Cluj-Napoca and 5% in Constanta.

The www.imobiliare.ro website was launched in 2000 and it has over 21,000 unique visitors per day.