UNNPR: The number of transactions could drop by up to 50% in 2009

The number of real estate transactions could drop by 30-50 percent at least this year, considering market signals and its evolution in January, when it registered an annual 50 percent drop, said Ion Marin, Vice President of the National Union of Romanian Notaries Public (UNNPR).

Marin added that he hopes that the Real estate market will begin to recover this summer, when banks are expected to resume lending. The number of real estate transactions fell some 25 percent in the last four months of 2008, and by over seven percent in 2008 year-on-year.
 
The downward trend, which began in September, continued in the final month of 2008, when the number of transactions dropped to 33,000, some 35 percent lower than the more than 50,000 transactions finalized in December 2007. However, the sharpest drop, of 54 percent, was registered in November.
 
According to estimates by the Colliers International consultancy company, some 3,000 new apartments were sold in the first half of 2008, but sales fell to some 500 units in the remaining six months.

Business Standard