Crisis Drives 40% Of Real Estate Agencies Bankrupt

The economic crisis and the nearly complete gridlock on the real estate market have serious affected real estate agencies in Romania. According to Adrian Erimescu, Managing Director of the real estate portal imobiliare.ro, approximately 40 per cent of the real estate agencies in the country have gone bankrupt.

"Because of the lack of financial resources, many prospective buyers do not want to use the services of a real estate agency anymore. This means that realtors must regain the confidence of their customers through quality offers and services. One of the solutions we have identified is that real estate agencies should present their customers detailed offers depicting facts as accurately as possible, in order to help prospective buyers save time and money upon searching for the property they want," Erimescu told a press conference.

Erimescu announced that, following a 200,000 EUR investment, imobiliare.ro would launch a new real estate portal to support both realtors and prospective buyers with a special section of "guaranteed" advertisements. The respective advertisements will include valid and real information about a property, which will be updated periodically. The section will also offer additional information such as images, layouts, surface and partitioning.

The portal will also include, at a later date, a national real estate index reflecting price trends for different types of property. Until the official index created by the National Statistics Institute becomes available, the imobiliare.ro index will be based on sale prices and the figures released by notaries.

Many prospective property buyers cannot afford real estate agencies anymore.