I have an appartment due for completion in december in the greenfields development in north Bucharest. I believe there is a lot of problems with this site regarding overpriceing and difficulty getting mortgages for this development.
Does anybody know anything about this or any ways out?

Hi there.

We have 2 houses to be completed in the same area. I dont think they are going to be finished now til next year. There is a get out clause.

We too have a property in Greenfields supposed to be completed September which has now run into November. We have now been informed that the banks in Romania are not lending to non residents and feel this is a little too convenient for the developer.

Our apartment is in Onix is anyone else in the same situation and what more can we find our about this

I have run into the same problem with the banks, I have an appartment in blue which is supposed to be finished in december.
I have been in touch with several brokers and none of them can even offer any mortage products in romania
I have been trying to get an update from the developer on completion dates which they say is still december.
I dont think i will be able to raise the funds elsewhere which leaves me waiting to lose my deposit!

Our mortgage partner Easy Credit can offer products in Romania.

Request a quote here now:

http: / /www .propertysecrets .net /mortgage -quote .html

I have been in contact with him up until a few weeks ago when he told me they could no longer offer any products in romania for the moment!

Dear rickk,

The situation since then did change somewhat (in a positive way). We have signed up with aditional banks who are willing to finance non-residents (subject to status), and we also kept a good eye on the pricing of these products as well as the procedure to apply.

Our aim is to have an easy procedure regarding applying for a mortgage (e.g. the bank to accept documents in English in electronic format) without the hassle of getting apostilled documents. Secondly Romanian banks (as well as banks in the "West") are more strict in selecting their clients (be it local Romanians and/or non-residents). This is due to the current financial climate in many countries, and not only in Romania and we are trying to find out which bank would lend to non-residents based on competetive terms.

I am having a meeting with one particular bank today (wednesday) to find out more in depth details about the procedure of applying for a non resident mortgage (as they have the product in place!), but this particular bank has set a few conditions which I need to discuss with them before we move forward.

In case everything is straightened out, we can start offering a competetive mortgage product (compared to other Romanian banks) , whereas an approval in principal can be given to us in a matter of days (max 3-5 days).

I hope everyone understands that we are committed to Property Secret clients to find competetive mortgage solutions but sometimes things move a bit slow in Romania...

Once I have an update I will mention this here on the forum

Stefan
(Managing Director / owner of Easy Credit)

Hi there,
New on this. We have a flat in Greenfields near to complete in December. What is the status of your purchases? Did anyone complete? Anyone got a mortgage? Anyone used Easy Credit?
We are evaluating our options, as mortgages are difficult and the market now does not seem to be the one where we thought we were buying into.
Has anyone run away leaving the deposit behind? Has anyone tried to get it back?
Thanks for any info!

Hi. We were due to complete on an apartment in Topaz during the middle of the year. We took the difficult decision of pulling out and relinquishing the deposit. When I sat down and did all the figures including entry costs, running costs, rental yields and exit costs, based on best guess predictions (after visting and speaking with many agents in Romania), I could not see the value in putting more good finances into this. It was clear that it was something that was not going to deliver what we had expected. We were also mindful of the global climate that was emerging at the time, and it seemed that our purchase price was now way beyond what even the developers had aniticpated.

On hindsight would our decision have been any different - No! The funds that were needed to bring the property into use have been diverted into something that will cover the loss over the medium to long term. There will of course be advisers and other people with different opinions but for us and our intended plans - it feels the right decision even though it was painful. We are not looking at recouping the deposit as I don't think the contract we signed is strong enough to stand that test. I am however, pursuing a complaint with the mortgage brokers (which I intend to refer to the FSA here in the UK) about misleading financial advice but that is a separate matter. I think their practice is simply lacking in any morals or ethics.

I hope this helps your dilemma.

Thanks for the reply.
Did the promoter try to convince you in any way to close on the deal, did he offer a discount or financing?
In my contract there is a clause that says that if the completion is delayed I can walk out. However there is another clause that says that the developer has the right to delay the completion for adverse weather conditions wich exceed the normal limits. It seems December and Novemeber were 2 degrees celsius below historical AVERAGE. Does anyone have a clue if this can be interpreted as exceeding normal limits? I would say that is not beyond normal limits... anybody has a clue?