Land transactions with residential and commercial projects exceed 800 million Euro in 2021(consultants)

Market for land transactions exclusively intended for residential and commercial projects (offices, retail, hotels) registered last year the highest value since 2007 until now, namely 800 million Euro, according to a report done by the Colliers real estate consulting company, published on Monday, Agerpres reports.

The total volume of transactions has went up by over two and a half times from the estimated volume of 310 million Euro in 2020, Colliers data shows.

"Retailers and residential developers were extremely active, the land for these types of projects representing approximately 90% of the total. The capital remains ahead with three quarters of the nominal trade volume, namely a value of over 600 million Euro," according to the source.

Approximately 70% of transactions in Bucharest are intended for residential projects, Colliers consultants estimate, also explaining that there are numerous large transactions with mixed projects where the allocated share is not established with certitude by the developers in various sectors.

For comparison, in 2007, the Capital City alone registered transactions of over 800 million Euro, and nationwide it exceeded the 1 billion Euro threshold according to the estimates in that period.

"2021 proves to be a record year because there was a good interest for land, supported by an adequate liquidity, the current economic context, with a very high inflation, increasing attractiveness of real estate placements. The important trade pipeline started in 2019 and 2020 which carried out slower given the context of the pandemic, also had a significant contribution," Sanziana Oprea, Land Agency director for Colliers, explains.

Apart from the Capital city, Colliers consultants have also seen an increased interest from developers for a series of large cities, such as Timisoara, Brasov, Constanta, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Galati, Braila, Oradea, Sibiu, but also for certain cities with a smaller population, such as Vaslui, Tulcea, Giurgiu or Calarasi.

Furthermore, the number of large transactions (over 5 million Euro) has gone up significantly, including in areas from outside Bucharest, and Colliers consultants are highlighting that there were transactions for values that were rarely seen after 2008. For example, for a land in the Primaverii area (Bucharest's District 1), the Hagag developer paid almost 6,000 Euro per square meter, nearing the absolute record on the local Romania market, when a plot of land in the same District 1's Aviatorilor area sold for approximately 7,000 Euro per square meter, approximately one decade and a half ago.