JLL | Bucharest City Report Q4 2021 | 7 March 2022

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Bucharest City Report Q4 2021 | The latest data about Romanian real estate market is available | March 07, 2022

Despite the fourth COVID-19 wave in autumn, the Romanian economy performed very well during 2021, with an estimated GDP growth of 7%.

Q4 2021 property investment volume for Romania is estimated at €337 million, almost 30% over the previous quarter and more than 4.5 times the volume registered in Q4 2020. For the whole of 2021, total investment volumes reached €900 million, almost the same as in 2020.

By far, the largest investment deal closed in Q4 2021 was the sale of 6 Cora hypermarkets in different cities, by Louis Delhaize Group to Supernova.

Office space demand is gradually recovering. Total gross transaction volume in Bucharest during Q4 2021 reached 84,300 m², 17.6% over the previous quarter, and 53.5% over Q4 2020.

Q4 2021 recorded consistent deliveries in Bucharest, amounting to almost 92,000 m², 15% below the previous quarter, but almost 3 times higher when compared to Q4 2020.4 new office buildings were delivered in Bucharest during Q4 2021, bringing the total modern stock to 3,198,000 m².

Despite the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hitting Romanian in autumn, retail sales volumes kept recovering during Q4, the increase reaching as high as 7% in December 2021, when compared to the same month of 2020, according to the National Institute of Statistics.

Q4 2021 also concentrated the largest number of retail deliveries during 2021, with 6 new schemes or extensions of existing ones, totalling 63,100 m².

The largest projects delivered during the period were the 20,800 m² Prahova Value Center in Ploiesti and the 16,700 m² Barlad Value Center.

Q4 2021 marked a record total demand for modern industrial spaces in Romania, reaching 483,600m², almost 4 times over the previous quarter and 77% over Q4 2020.

In 2021 overall, total transactions volumes surpassed the 1 millionm² mark for the first time, reaching 1.009 million m², 47% over 2020. Net take-up accounted for 726,700 m², an increase of 40% when compared to the previous year.

Almost 244,000m² of industrial and logistics spaces were delivered in Romania during Q4 2021, compared to only 67,000 m² in the previous quarter.

Bucharest region accounted for 217,000 m², or 89% of total deliveries during Q4, while Cluj county came second, with 24,000 m², or almost 10% of the total.

Residential demand was boosted in Q4 by the extended ceiling for the 5% VAT.

The level of new units transactions in Q4 2021 was situated somewhere at 8,700 units for Bucharest and 2,183 units for Ilfov. The residential supply for Bucharest –Ilfov increased with approximately 6,200 new units in Q4 2021, out of which 4,570 new units in Bucharest and 1,630 new units in Ilfov county.

Overall, in 2021 there were more than 17,000 new units delivered on the Bucharest and Ilfov market, the highest supply level ever recorded since 2004 on the market.

The residential supply in Bucharest is maintaining its ascending trend. However, the total supply at the end of the year increased with 25%whencompared to the 2020 total supply.