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Other panelists highlighted potential opportunities outside Bucharest, such as retail and office developments in secondary and tertiary cities across the country.
Yet there are other obstacles. The increasingly unrealistic price expecta- tions on the part of sellers is holding the market back. “I’m afraid that as inter-
Then there is the political situation. Cor- ruption remains a problem despite the efforts of Romania’s National Anticor- ruption Directorate (DNA) to clean up the country, and with no less than three governments in the last year and numer- ous ad hoc policy and fiscal changes, it’s perhaps not surprising that some inves- tors are wary of committing to Romania.
No longer a black hole
Should the ongoing property investment boom come to Romania, a couple of oth- er SEE markets, while much smaller in terms of population, are not far behind.
Bulgaria saw a record year number
of transactions in 2017, which added
up to almost €1bn. Among them were the €253mn sale of Sofia’s biggest mall to NEPI. But the country faces some of the same problems as Romania – a small market and a high level of corruption, as highlighted by the ongoing scandal over Czech energy firm CEZ’s sale of its local assets to a small firm owned by a friend of the energy minister.
Serbia, while not an EU member yet, is also increasingly of interest having been a “black hole” for many investors previ- ously, and there continues to be a lot of resort development along Montenegro’s Adriatic coast.
"The increasingly unrealistic price expectations on the part of sellers is holding the market back"
est grows we might see a mismatch in demand and supply in terms of pricing, which might cause Romania to miss the cycle. We have already started seeing sellers’ expectations a little bit ahead
of what the country allows,” warns Pateraki.
The best most speakers could say on
this subject is that given the situation in Hungary and particularly Poland, whose right-wing governments have put them in direct conflict with the EU, Romania is starting to look no worse than some of its regional peers.
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