Sale prices of Bucharest’s old apartments post record 15 percent drop in March

Homes in the six postal districts of Bucharest posted monthly price falls of between 5 and 20 percent in March, with District 1 being hardest hit, after several months of managing to hang onto its sales value.
District 2 posted the smallest change, with a drop of 5 percent in the sale price of old apartments, Colliers reports.
An apartment in the old blocks of Bucharest's District 6 can now be acquired for less than EUR 1,000 per sqm.
In January of this year, the BREI indicated a fall of 20 percent from its peak in April 2008, when it posted a value of EUR 1,888 per sqm.
With a slight decrease registered in Q2 of 2008, the second half of last year saw five falls in value in six months, from EUR 1,844 per sqm in July to EUR 1,540 in December.
In percentage terms, the BREI fell 16 percent in the second half of 2008, with a total April-December peak to trough decrease of EUR 350 per sqm, meaning a slump of 20 percent.
In 2009, the general value of the BREI lost 9.5 percent in only one month, from February to March.
Magda Purice