Over 1 mln sqm of non-residential buildings delivered in Romania last year

Real estate developers in Romania delivered new non-residential buildings - namely office spaces, shopping centers and logistics parks, with a cumulative area of over 1 million square meters (sqm) in 2019.

The total inventory of such spaces thus went up to 12 mln sqm at the end of the year, according to an analysis by real estate consultancy company Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

Over the past 25 years, the deliveries exceeded the 1 mln sqm threshold only in 2008 and 2016.

The most active segments in 2019 were those of offices and logistics, and the inventory at the end of the year is roughly evenly distributed between the three segments - offices, retail and logistics.

“Looking ahead, 2020 is expected to be a good year. Compared to 2019, a slight decrease is expected in the office and industrial sectors, while the developers of shopping centers could open new projects and extensions of existing centers with a cumulative area of 235,000 sqm, up almost 50% compared to the previous year,” the analysis shows.

Bucharest continued to dominate the local real estate market, with a share of over 52% of the newly delivered spaces in 2019, followed by Timișoara (11%), Sibiu (8%), and Cluj-Napoca (7%).

With a combined stock of offices, logistics and retail spaces of about 6 million sqm, Bucharest has a share of 50% of the Romanian real estate market, with a higher share in the office sector (80%) and lower in retail (30%).

(Photo source: La Fabrika Pixel S.I./Dreamstime.com)