Romanian Property News

The Colentina/Doamna Ghica zone is recognized as a good area for large development projects – the constructors of Rose Garden and Planorama already exploited the potential of the area with their blocks of flats. No surprise therefore that, on the (still available) plots of empty land more projects are shaping up. The latest one of these projects is Romfelt Plaza, put together by Romfelt Real Estate and Bog’art (a significant player in the current Romanian construction market).

Romfelt is a medium-large project, stretching over almost 14000 sqm, costing over 70 million including a total of nine blocks of flats. The blocks vary significantly in terms of size – one is a 24 story high tower (quite daring for the relatively soft soil of Bucharest), four are 16 story high and the last four blocks are only four story high. According to the project website (www.romfelt.ro), from the total of 616 studio/1-/2-/3-bedroom flats, 130 were already sold.

The biggest selling point of the project is its proximity to the green area of Doamna Ghica. As a result, on one side of the development two of the 16 story high blocks are likely to get a good view of the greenery, with the Fundeni lake featuring further in the background. On the other side of the project, the other two towers might actually “enjoy” the relatively animated Bucharest East Rail station. This is why the interest in the flats differed between the two sides – most of the sold flats are located on the “green” side, with very few of them being sold on the main skyscraper and the side towards the railway station. Although location is quite important, pricing is also on the slightly cheaper side…

Looking at the information on the Romfelt website the developers seem to be rather quiet about how much their flats actually cost, as the pages do not give any indication of specific/average prices for the flats, but only point towards the available financing solutions. The reason might be that some of the sold flats went for a 10% discount during a real estate fair back in February. Without the discount, the average prices are not too bad – €1125/sqm, but the rather spacious flats and the slightly cheaper 3-bedroom flats make the figures vary substantially. The studio flats, for example, measure 67sqm (yes, that is correct, studio flat on 67sqm) and cost €118000; two-bedroom flats however are only €50k more expensive, at €170000.

According to the developers, Romfelt Plaza will be ready for occupancy in the autumn of 2009.