Just to clarify - yes you can get mortgages as a non-resident, no you cant get self cert.

Eppiblue - As for investing in Cluj - an excellent idea, ***** are building there and need 15,000 people to start working for them by the end of next year. They are also funding part of the UNi and there are two other major players moving to the area. So if you are going to invest there, now is the chance, I just ran a development there and it sold out in 2hrs.

In fact everything is going up all over Romania, better to be more concerned about who you are buying from and what terms it is on.