Romanian Property News

Picture a fast growing real estate market, with a large number of ongoing development projects. Add a flexible planning law (to say the least) and fields around the big cities ready to be populated with houses. Finally, imagine also a population that does have (at least some) of the financial resources to invest in small projects (read “my house”). So, what’s missing? The architects! We’re in Romania, it is 2007, plenty of real estate are happening, but, according to the latest statistics, the country is facing a shortage of architects to design these projects.

In spite of the undergoing economic evolution of Romania, the Engineering and Architecture Universities are not registering any significant increase of new students.  For some inexplicable reason, the young generation is still looking for economic/management and law universities, in spite of the fact that fresh graduates in these sectors repeatedly found that their markets are saturated. The problem is chronic also due to historical circumstances.  Before Revolution (1989), the architect job was considered unprofitable (during the communism, there was virtually no real estate private or personal enterprise); as a result, the number of architects in Romania just after the fall of communism was extremely low. 

Big western architecture companies struggle to find Romanian architects, whether experienced or not. Unsurprisingly, those with experience are trying to set-up their own companies and get established on the Romanian market (and why not, as it is an opportunity which cannot be missed).  Some architecture companies are forced to give up projects as they have limited human resources and cannot engage in further commitments. At the same time, they have to offer very good salary packages to keep their employees.

If in some industries, from street cleaning and brick laying to maths research and IT consultancy, work force migration is straightforward as the same universal rules apply, architecture is closely linked to a country profile. As a result, although famous specialists are likely to be consulted across the continents, it is very difficult to say the least, due to the various regulations in place, for either Romanian architects to go abroad or foreign architects to come to Romania. So, for a while, the shortage is here to stay.