The international financial crisis will drive up prices of new apartments in Romania and force down prices for land, according to conclusions drawn during the Focus: 2008 Real Estate Market seminar, organized by Business Standard in partnership with the Casa Voastra and Imoinvest real estate agencies.

Experts forecast that the residential sector will rebound only in the fall of next year.

Home buyers will be most affected by the crisis, because in addition to increasing prices, they will be faced with higher loan installments, said Shimon Galon, Chief Executive Officer of the GTC Romania developer.

Mall developers will continue to concentrate on cities with over 100,000 inhabitants, and many projects that have not secured financing risk being frozen, said Colliers Realestate consultancy company. Sale and rental prices for offices will rise, due to a drop of over 50 percent of the space that was due to be delivered within the next two years.

The logistics segment is the only one with potential, because it is still in the early stages of development.

Source: BusinessStandard.ro