The volume of investments in Romania’s property sector exceeded €140 million in the first four months of 2021 due to a positive market sentiment, according to a report by real estate consultancy Crosspoint Real Estate.
In 2020, total investments amounted to little over €805 million, up 32% year-on-year. Despite the uncertain outlook, the office sector remained in 2020 the investors’ preferred type of asset, with an 85.3% share in the total investment volume, followed by the industrial market with only 10.3% share in the total.
Bucharest attracted the majority of investments in 2020 (83%), although in the previous couple of years regional markets have emerged as a promising alternative to the capital city.
In the land market, the transactions totaled over €220 million in Bucharest, with seven separate deals valued at over €10 million. The increased demand for land plots has also pushed prices up.
“Developers and investors have quickly caught up on the new turn the market has taken and shifted their focus on the residential market, while office development plans have been put on hold,” according to Crosspoint consultants.
In the office field, leasing has already increased by 23% in the first quarter of 2021, compared to Q1 2020. In total, over 68,000 sqm of office space were rented in Bucharest in the first three months of the year, out of which 44% were pre-leases.
In the industrial field, demand topped 220,000 sqm in Q1, a sharp increase from the leased stock of 67,000 sqm in the same period of last year.
In the residential area, demand for housing in Bucharest was up 39% in Q1 year-on-year given that prices have remained relatively constant since the end of 2020. According to data published by the National Statistics Institute, 67,816 homes were delivered in Romania in 2020, a slight increase compared to 2019. Bucharest and Ilfov registered the delivery of 20,800 new units.
