Originally Posted by nadiala

Hello Kevin, our property investment experience in Transylvania started on a rosy note in the autumn of 2005 and ended in tears around Christmas of 2006. After finding the land of our dreams and buying it without difficulty...we applied for the necessary building permit in order to start the construction of our dream house...only to find out that the land we had bought was classified as "green land" (4kms away from downtown!!!).This was our first ever real estate attempt, we thought we had covered all angles, including inquiring with the relevant authorities about the status of the land before completing the purchase. The answer was positive, the land was "intravillan" and we could build our house after getting the relevant documents...but we know now (at our expense) that a piece of land can be "intravillan" (within the city limits) and yet, be classified "green" (V7), and therefore not constructible. But hey! we still have the pleasure of admiring the fantastic Transylvanian sun set from our land...look at the bright side of things they say!

Originally Posted by sun321

My experience in investing in a former communist country has been limited to Latvia. The latvian property market has been booming since joining the EU. Prices for apartments are now ridiculous for a number of reasons. A lot of people have bought apartments in state owned buildings, there apartments are now maybe worth maybe 150,000 EUR market price for a 2 room apartment, however one can only insure these apartments for contents insurance as the building is owned by the local govt authority, what happens when the building burns down ? The local authorities that own these buildings cant even maintain them properly let alone compensate everyone market price for their apartments but still people keep paying these stupid prices. Secondly a lot of the apartment blocks built in the communist era during 60's, 1970's were only built to last 25 years they are pre-fab concrete structures a lot of them have concrete cancer you can see the steel re-inforcing exposed to the elements and rusting away but still people spend thousands on internal renovations thinking these buildings will last forever. No one thinks long term in these countries its live fast, look good and make a quick buck and its all built on false economies, a lot of the inflated property pricing in latvia has been blamed on money launders, these are not realistic prices as most people here make 15-20% of a western european salary, so renting a property out once you have bought it, is difficult as well. I would assume Romania would have similair problems except I think things there are still a bit more behind the baltic states so that means more red-tape and booby traps await the uneducated or naive buyer.

Originally Posted by Accession

Well put Sorin.

I am constantly looking for developments in Romania for my client base - what is your role?