Sharpest decline in real estate deals: 54% in November

The number of real estate deals sank by 54% last November against the same month of 2007, after declining by around 15% in September and October. November 2008 saw 32,774 real estate deals being sealed, compared with a total of 50,519 operations in November 2007, Viorel Manescu, chairman of the National Union of Notaries Public of Romania, told ZF. Since the start of the year, the total number of deals concluded on the real estate market fell, standing at 451,758 in late November, compared with 472,172 in the first 11 months of 2007. Amid the falling number of deals, taxes levied by notaries for the revenues generated from the transfer of real estate properties dropped by half, to 60.7m RON in November 2008, from 120m RON in November 2007. The first signs of decline on the real estate market emerged in May, but starting autumn corrections gained momentum. As access to financing narrowed due to the tighter lending conditions, the first price corrections also appeared. Manescu believes the Romanian real estate would have suffered less from the crisis had real estate prices not risen excessively prior to the crisis because of the profit-hungry sellers that overvalued sale prices. “The market is not completely frozen, as we can speak of such a situation when no more deals get done, but it’s rather in an expectative mood”, Manescu says.