Knight Frank comes up with puzzling estimate for number of ultra-rich Romanians

Nearly 91,500 Romanians had assets worth over USD 1 million, according to Knight Frank real estate consultancy firm quoted by Ziarul Financiar. Of these, 1,828 were reportedly in the category of ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWI), with fortunes of over USD 30 mln each.

The figures are reported as of 2021, and they show the largest number of UHNWIs in the region: three times the figure in the Czech Republic (597) – the European country with among the lowest income disparities, and nearly twice that in Poland (1,067).

The figures are in line with the wide income disparity in Romania, which is the widest in the entire European Union. But they should be taken with a bit of salt: the same firm, Knight Frank, estimated in 2019 the number of UHNWIs in Romania at only 215, as of 2018(+5% YoY). Now, the real estate consultancy agency has revised the figures: 904 UHNWIs in Romania already in 2016 and 1,772 in 2020 (no intermediary data published). A four-fold revision of data.

At the same time, the number of “millionaires” as of 2021, over 90,000 in Romania, seems a visible overestimate.

Real estate consultant Dragos Dragoteanu also questions the figure in a column published by Ziarul Financiar, from the perspective of luxury properties in the country. According to specifications published in 2019, the Knight Frank Attitudes Survey is conducted based on the answers obtained from private bankers and asset managers – not necessarily knowledgeable of their customers’ liabilities.

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