Anchor cuts prices as a result falling sales in InCity

Anchor Grup real estate developer, owner of Bucuresti Mall and Plaza Romania shopping centres of Bucharest, has cut prices of apartments part of InCity housing complex made up of 502 apartments under construction in Vitan area, amid the plummeting sales since October. “Until October, we were selling as much as five apartments per month, but the pace has dropped since then. We’ve cut prices by 8%, from 1,970 euros per square metre to 1,820 euros/sqm, and in the following period we’ll start renting the apartments where people can move starting April-May,” Ibrahim Paksoy, CEO of Anchor Grup, told ZF. Developers of new housing units started announcing price reductions, by 10-15%, after on the old apartment market property values have slumped by more than 30% in the past year. Paksoy chose not to specify how many apartments have been sold so far, only mentioning “half of the apartments put out for sale” were sold. Anchor started selling InCity apartments in 2006, at a price of 1,219 euros/sqm plus VAT. “Fortunately, we haven’t sold apartments to investors, so that we’ve diversified the risk. People who can no longer get loans at the value of apartments can get loans from us at market interests,” Paksoy also said. The project entails investments of around 68m euros, with the entire complex having a 92,000 square metre area. The smallest housing units of the project have an area of 62 built square metres, according to the latest available data, so that prices start from 112,000 euros, plus VAT. Old, 60 square metre apartments in this area have prices of between 60,000 and 90,000 euros.