I visited Bucharest on Thursday and Friday and I am not convinced that the East part of Bucharest is the best place to invest in. This part of the city looks terrible with lots of factories and hundreds of old communists blocks, etc. The traffic from the east into the centre of Bucharest is horrendous and there seems to be no way to improve it. I have seen MAJOR infrastructure, commercial and residential improvements, but they are not happening in the East. They are taking place in the Centre and North of Bucharest. This will provide easy access to the airport, etc (Sadly these major developments I have seen will not help people living East). Although the East is one of the ugliest parts of Bucharest, it is also one of the cheapest. Land has become very expensive in the more desirable parts of Bucharest. For this reason a few residential developers have started to look East. I have spoken to a major developer who have many (15+) developments in Romania. They are building more upmarket developments in the centre and north of Bucharest, but have decided to build developments aimed at the lower end of the market in the East. These new build apartments in the East sells for around 1000 euro/m2 (In the centre & north +-1300 euro/m2 upwards).

I just want to add that although there are tram links from the East to the city centre, they seem to share the same road with cars. They therefore get caught up in the same trafic jams? (It took us 1.5 hours back to the city centre for the +-3 miles) Having said all this I do not have prior experience in terms of how the secondary market develops in major Eastern European cities. Maybe Mr. Tavi Bota is right and it is just too early to see anything yet?

Thanks for the report from Bucharest. To be fair about the transport situation though - wasn't one of the big selling points for Pallady that it was close to a soon-to-be-opened subway station.

Agree - The subway station should make a real difference!

A couple of comments: The traffic in Bucharest is a problem and this is not confined to the East. In fact as someone who travels from Otopeni into the centre regularly, the drive from the north is far worse than the drive from the East. trams always have priority over cars and to say that because trams share the roads they are subject to the same jams is incorrect. Whilst the east is not attractive at this time, was anyone in the north or west 3-4 years ago? Time will tell but if the developers are moving in to satisfy the demand for properties for the middle classes in the East, the whole area is bound to improve.......docklands in East London was once an awful place.

I will be looking at the sunrise development in the east of bucharest. Does anyone have any thoughts ? I do believe that the general outlook for the east can only improve as Bucharest develops.

Hi. I'm sorry if this sounds blunt, but why is it claimed that Tavi Bota is "Romania’s best independent property market analyst"? I don't doubt somebody working closely with PS is a very good analyst, but the claim made here is quite surprising.

I looked up his name and I could not find one article from him or his name on a conference or something. In fact among the few responses I got to the query, all were either PS (or Visium Group, which is the same thing) or Facebook, LinkedIn or so.

If I look up any Romanian property analyst, such as Razvan Zamfir for example, I'll find lots of articles in Romanian.

Any clarification?

Greetings and no offense,

Sacha.

Tavi Bota used to be the "golden boy" of PS investment hype in Romania. I now understand that he has been ditched as their local contact.

Some weeks ago I tried to get up to date information about the then current situation in the Romanian market and in paricular, my own investment. I was told that none of the analysts/brokers had much idea of current market values.

Property secrets:

Are there any brokers left in the organization who have current knowledge of selling prices in the north of Bucharest, and in particular, wether or not the property that I am purchasing in MyDream residence will be worth what I am paying for it?

There are many people like me on this forum who are seriously worried about soon-to-complete Romanian deals. The lack of any response from PS on this topic adds to the concern. Perhapse this type of market analsys is now reserved for your "premium" clients??

Mike I agree. I think there's a problem of needing to talk things up to sustain the PS business model. I do sympathise but I think a dose of telling it like it is now rather than keeping heads in the sand would do PS well in the longer term in gaining and retaining the trust of clients.
Huw

Hi,

Just returned from Bucharest. This new Theodor Pallady metro stop will open in December. At the moment, the last stop is Nicolai Grigorescu.

When I visited Bucharest in September, Investment Romania brought me to see their off-plan units across from Nicolai Grigorescu metro. Interestingly, they were blissfully unaware of this new metro stop saying that all transport beyond Nicolai Grigorescu would only ever be tram-based.

Colliers report on Bucharest Real Estate Index is stating that old appartment prices have declined to levels of October 2007 with District 6 (in the south) being hit hardest (16% drop) and District 2 being the most stable. The report goes on to say asking prices are unchanged for new builds for 6 months.

I'm hoping the traffic chaos caused by the lack of infrastructure, price hikes and over-supply in the north will push up demand in the east (where I have bought) where purchase and rent prices are more realistic for locals.
Hope the above helps!