House Buying in Romania
Well after a Year, I have finally bought an apartment here! It is a real challenge as everyone everywhere wants to steal all your hard currency off you for nothing at all! So far this year I would say there were about 4 houses out of well over 40 which I saw which merited any interest at all!
The problem is that Romanian housing stock is quite run down as no one can afford to make a decent house (after all every 30 years a huge Earthquake comes and knocks and weakens everything!). But not deterred, I thought that coming here with lots of UK cash would make it easy - I watched as prices doubled, but the quality did not. There is so much you need to be careful of, as you can't be sure who owns the house in many cases as it was taken off the original owners in the communist times, and there is no certainty that the original owner or a long forgotton relative will come back clutching the papers.
When you do find one, you are on your own in terms of structural survey, and only then do you appreciate the need of one in the UK, as you discover there are missing metal bands in the roof, which means it will fall down in a big shake, or the roof needs fixing and noone else in the apartment has any money to help you cover it...
As soon as you say, I would like to buy an apartment please, unless you say it with a Romanian accent, the prices really soar. I found one flat which started life at 65,000$ (About £30,000), and by the end of the sentence had magically soared to 90, 000 Euros, (about £60,000)... most apartments prices rose. Those which did not were next to places you really would not want to visit, let alone live, which meant everyone were keen to see them sold for anything... the best in this circumstance was a house so close to the cooling towers of the local electric powerstation, that 'we don't need to switch on the heating in winter (which gets to -21C) here as the Towers keep us warm... '. I decided living so close to the bealching source of pollution struck it off my list!
Then, just say you do find a house, while hiding the fact you are a foreigner (which stops you buying much anyway!), you then have the transaction. Romanians have no faith in the banks, which means you have to travel across the city, with more than the lifetimes wages of a local worker in your hand, to meet the sellers, who want to count the cash with you, but won't come to your bank as it is not at their solicitors office, and then when it is counted, need a lift back to the bank (which charged you huge amounts of commission for taking out hard currency!), to put it back in!
Then you need to work out quite what to do with the place, as it now needs completely gutting and making decent... The problem here is you are in a third world country, where quality is not high on the agenda, and getting anythin IKEA like is a difficulty, as much as living without it! So we are now needing to search high and low for the objects. The alternative is to pay 500 euros to someone who will happily redesign for you an Eastern Block flat, with all its furniture, with of course you then have to drive around trying to find... so I am using a magazine and lots of imagination.
However if you do buy, when it comes to renting it out to other foreigners, it is very simple as everyone now are charging so much to people coming to live in the city, that you can charge almost anything as Western companies are picking up the bill - but this of course would require you to go through the house buying process more than once - as you still need somewhere to live as the street children take offence at others living in the heating ducts with them... unless you happen to bring them some glue to sniff...
But now it is done - I am glad. I am just hoping we don't need to go through the process more than once!
The problem is that Romanian housing stock is quite run down as no one can afford to make a decent house (after all every 30 years a huge Earthquake comes and knocks and weakens everything!). But not deterred, I thought that coming here with lots of UK cash would make it easy - I watched as prices doubled, but the quality did not. There is so much you need to be careful of, as you can't be sure who owns the house in many cases as it was taken off the original owners in the communist times, and there is no certainty that the original owner or a long forgotton relative will come back clutching the papers.
When you do find one, you are on your own in terms of structural survey, and only then do you appreciate the need of one in the UK, as you discover there are missing metal bands in the roof, which means it will fall down in a big shake, or the roof needs fixing and noone else in the apartment has any money to help you cover it...
As soon as you say, I would like to buy an apartment please, unless you say it with a Romanian accent, the prices really soar. I found one flat which started life at 65,000$ (About £30,000), and by the end of the sentence had magically soared to 90, 000 Euros, (about £60,000)... most apartments prices rose. Those which did not were next to places you really would not want to visit, let alone live, which meant everyone were keen to see them sold for anything... the best in this circumstance was a house so close to the cooling towers of the local electric powerstation, that 'we don't need to switch on the heating in winter (which gets to -21C) here as the Towers keep us warm... '. I decided living so close to the bealching source of pollution struck it off my list!
Then, just say you do find a house, while hiding the fact you are a foreigner (which stops you buying much anyway!), you then have the transaction. Romanians have no faith in the banks, which means you have to travel across the city, with more than the lifetimes wages of a local worker in your hand, to meet the sellers, who want to count the cash with you, but won't come to your bank as it is not at their solicitors office, and then when it is counted, need a lift back to the bank (which charged you huge amounts of commission for taking out hard currency!), to put it back in!
Then you need to work out quite what to do with the place, as it now needs completely gutting and making decent... The problem here is you are in a third world country, where quality is not high on the agenda, and getting anythin IKEA like is a difficulty, as much as living without it! So we are now needing to search high and low for the objects. The alternative is to pay 500 euros to someone who will happily redesign for you an Eastern Block flat, with all its furniture, with of course you then have to drive around trying to find... so I am using a magazine and lots of imagination.
However if you do buy, when it comes to renting it out to other foreigners, it is very simple as everyone now are charging so much to people coming to live in the city, that you can charge almost anything as Western companies are picking up the bill - but this of course would require you to go through the house buying process more than once - as you still need somewhere to live as the street children take offence at others living in the heating ducts with them... unless you happen to bring them some glue to sniff...
But now it is done - I am glad. I am just hoping we don't need to go through the process more than once!
posted by Time to Teach | Sunday, November 07, 2004
9 Comments:
Wait until you buy a house! Maybe you should have hired
a real estate company, it could have been much easier. At least you would have escaped from money counting adventures.
We did buy through an agent, but they do very little in Romania (or ours did not!). SO even with the agent, the woman wanted to see and feel the money! As for house buying, we went through the hoops - we found a house with terrible paper work, so we spent 9 months getting the paper work correct - the thanks we got was as the process took so long and she now had clear paperwork, the woman then wanted an extra 30,000 Euros for the place! Still could be worse... one house I was interested, the owner owned the house but not the land so one day the real owner could come back and legally ask you to move the house from his land!
Okay, so you've really had a tough experience! When I bought my apartment in Denmark last year, the process went very smoothly. I have never met the owners, only the real estate agent. He and my lawyer did the whole paper work (which is fairly standard here), then finally my bank agreed to lend me the money, and it was over in less than a month.
Hey!
Nice website! Good to see other foreigners are facing the same trials and tribulations that I am in Romania.
I lucked out: my boss' mother in law is subletting me her apartment. I'm only here until April, so I guess I got off easy.
Keep writing!
/Karla
Well Karla, I am not so foreigner as you might think. I was born in Romania and lived there for like 28 years.
Creepy, don't you think?
Haha! Actually, my comment was directed towards Time To Teach, but thanks for the response!
/K
I love have you two discussing things - makes this writing so much more fun. Question for you both (To answer if you wish)...
Karla - why are you leaving here - is it the job or the country?
Lextar - Will you ever return to live here?
In spirit, I am very much there. I hope I will return someday to live in Romania, but not soon. There are too many things to see and do at the present time which force me to remain en expat.
Oddly - it is the opposite for me. Too much do do here to leave and return home... plus I like the weather and food here too much to leave! One day will go home... maybe!
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