Prices of Bucharest apartments down by a further 11% in three months

Old three-room apartments in Bucharest have become 34% cheaper in the past year, costing 106,000 euros on average in March, according to the ZF real estate index. Since the beginning of this year, apartment prices have fallen 11%, to an average price of 1,370 euros per square metre. The biggest annual declines were recorded in the 1 Decembrie, Dristor, Militari and Brancoveanu areas, where apartment prices were down by 45-48%. Over 40% declines have also been recorded in the Titan, Drumul Taberei, Crangasi, Oltenitei, Mihai Bravu and Berceni areas, according to the ZF real estate index. The index is put together based on sales ads for three-room apartments, published on the anuntul.ro ad website, and considers only 70-80 square-metre apartments built between 1980 and 1990. Declines have not spared Bucharest's central areas, either, although they have been less significant. In March, there was practically no area that saw apartment prices up against March last year. "The Bucharest real estate market is half-frozen," Radu Lucianu, managing director of real estate consultancy CBRE Eurisko told ZF. Transactions involving apartments are increasingly few. After in autumn the number of transactions was 15% lower than in the same period of the previous year, transactions have gone down dramatically at the beginning of this year, by up to 50%, according to the Union of Notaries Public in Romania. Real estate consultants say sellers are asking for increasingly lower prices, while buyers are waiting to see how much these prices will go down. Even those determined to buy an apartment face significant difficulties in securing financing from banks.