hi Aiden, we live in the south east of london where are you is it fesiable to meet up and talk ?

Steve , live in Dublin, not in UK much I'm afraid.
It is hard work managing a developement when you are not on site continuously or at least very often. Lots of opportunity for your site manager to make money from you!
If you are not going to be on site f/t or p/t I would strongly suggest you to sell the site on. There is huge risk in developing if you are not very experienced and have good controls and supervisory presence in place .

Construction costs in Romania are going up dramatically. Steel has gone up 120% in the last year with nearly the same rise in the cost of cement. Timber went up 40% for sure last year.Difficult to pass these costs on in price increases currently.

Also costs of the old apartments became up to €10,000 cheaper in the first six months of 2008, as the average price per square meter dropped by some €200 in Romania’s major cities, according to a report by real estate agencies network RE/MAX Romania.
This means old apartment prices declined by some 10-15 percent in H1.
The drop in prices was caused by a standstill on the market in the first six months of 2008, caused by the international financial crisis.

In Bucharest
Sato Imobiliare Real estate agency’s General Manager Liviu Ureche told Business Standard (English Newspaper) the decline in prices was some 5 percent for apartments in central Bucharest and some 15 percent at the city outskirts. “This trend could go on by the end of the year, unless Romania’s National Bank (BNR) comes up with regulations aimed to ease lending,” he said. However, the BNR is currently working at legislation meant to curb lending and it increased the key rate for the eight time in a row, up to 10.25 percent, which is likely to further deter population to contract mortgages.
New apartments market is also affected by the international credit crunch. The number of transactions declined by some 50 percent since last year, prompting developers to offer discounts up to €10,000. Cluj is one such area that is suffering from this.

My advice is to hold for say three years minimum and research, research , research before getting into bed with development or sell when you think you are comfortable wuth the price.
Remember always leave a bit for the next guy!

aiden

I have recently put a deposit through Obelisk on a 1 bed apartment in the Fontana Residence, Cluj.

I'm not able to get out there to check it for myself - at least for a few months - so would very much appreciate anybody's input on the development.

Many thanks