Romania's Residential Property Market Analysis 2026

House prices in Romania accelerated through the first half of 2026 even as transaction volumes fell and the economy slipped into recession, and in mid-July, a ransomware attack on the national property register froze the transaction chain outright.

This extended overview from Global Property Guide covers key aspects of Romania's housing market and takes a closer look at its most recent developments and long-term trends.

Currency conversions in this report assume EUR 1 = USD 1.156 and USD 1 = RON 4.5329, the reference rates published by the National Bank of Romania on 10 August 2026.

Table of Contents

• Property Prices and Price Index
• Historic Perspective
• Property Demand Trends
• Property Supply Trends
• Rental Market: Rents and Rental Yields
• Mortgage Market and Interest Rates
• Economic and Social Factors

Property Prices and Price Index

Residential pricing in Romania is rising faster than it was a year ago, and faster than almost anywhere else in Europe outside the Iberian peninsula and the Balkans. Eurostat data shows the national House Price Index up 7.80% year-on-year in Q1 2026, accelerating from 6.70% in Q4 2025, and up 3.2% on the previous quarter after a 1.7% quarterly gain in Q4. That compares with 5.1% year-on-year for the European Union as a whole and 4.7% for the euro area. Among the member states for which data are available, only Finland recorded an annual decline, at 2.0%, while the fastest gains were in Portugal (17.8%), Bulgaria (14.8%) and Slovakia (14.4%).

Romania's house price annual change:

The real picture is less flattering. With the quarterly inflation rate reported by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) at 9.6% in Q1 2026 against the same quarter of 2025, house prices fell by roughly 1.6% in inflation-adjusted terms. Romania was one of only six EU countries where house prices rose by less than inflation across 2025, according to Eurostat's deflated series, and the gap has not closed since.

Asking prices on the main listing portals are running well ahead of the official index. Imobiliare.ro's residential market index, reported by the news agency Agerpres, put average asking prices for new apartments in Bucharest at EUR 2,636 (USD 3,047) per square meter in June 2026, up 21% year-on-year and the sharpest rise among the country's major cities. New-build growth was far more modest elsewhere: Constanta was close to flat at EUR 2,071 (USD 2,394) per square meter, up almost 2%, while Brasov and Cluj-Napoca advanced by around 7% and 8% respectively, with Cluj-Napoca approaching EUR 3,500 (USD 4,046).

On the resale side, Timisoara led with an 11% annual gain to EUR 1,918 (USD 2,217) per square meter, followed by Bucharest at 10% and EUR 2,259 (USD 2,611). Cluj-Napoca remains the most expensive market in absolute terms at EUR 3,300 (USD 3,815) per square meter, but recorded the slowest resale growth of the major cities at 5%.

The divergence between the new-build and resale segments in the capital is the most striking feature of the 2026 data so far, and it points to a supply composition effect rather than a broad-based repricing: with completions concentrated in higher specification projects and the delivery pipeline thin, the new-build sample has shifted upmarket.

Secondary markets are also firming. Imobiliare.ro recorded average asking price gains of 11% in Ploiesti to EUR 1,413 (USD 1,633) per square meter, 10% in Craiova to EUR 2,179 (USD 2,519) and 9% in Sibiu to EUR 2,016 (USD 2,330), while Oradea rose 5% and stayed below EUR 1,900. A separate index from the platform Storia put the national average asking price at EUR 2,053 (USD 2,373) per square meter in May 2026, some 7.5% above the EUR 1,909 recorded a year earlier.

The government's own reading of the market is blunt. In the note accompanying the 2026 renewal of the Noua Casa mortgage guarantee scheme, the Ministry of Finance described the period from Q4 2025 to Q1 2026 as a tense one for the housing market, characterised by a fall in supply of roughly 18%, price increases of more than 15%, and significant fiscal pressure including the increase in VAT to 21% and higher taxes on property and on rental income.

Then, on 14 July 2026, the market stopped. The National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration (ANCPI) discovered unauthorised access to its systems, and a technical investigation led by the National Cyber Security Directorate confirmed a ransomware attack in which servers running the agency's applications were encrypted and partly deleted. The e-Terra platform became unusable. Because notaries require a land registry extract issued in real time in order to authenticate a sale, the consequences cascaded through the whole chain: deeds could not be authenticated, banks could not disburse mortgages, developers could not complete cadastral receptions, and thousands of transactions were left suspended.

Parliament responded with Law 161/2026, in force from 7 August, which extends the deadline for delivering homes under the reduced 9% VAT rate from 31 July to 30 September 2026 for individuals holding pre-contracts concluded by 31 July 2025. The standard rate is 21%, so for an eligible home the difference runs to as much as RON 72,000 (USD 15,884) per transaction. Buyers who paid the standard rate between 1 and 6 August, before the law took effect, will be able to reclaim the difference from 1 October under a procedure still to be approved. In a communication dated 7 August the government estimated that e-Terra would become functional during the week of 10 to 16 August, with services restored in stages.

For the balance of 2026, the consensus view is one of adjustment rather than correction. Colliers expects the residential market to remain closely tied to the wider macroeconomic environment, with a more visible economic rebound unlikely before 2027, while over the medium term limited housing supply and continued demand for well connected, energy efficient homes should keep upward pressure on prices in well positioned developments.

Historic Perspective

From Post-Accession Boom to a Decade of Nominal Gains Without Real Ones

Romania's residential market experienced a pronounced upswing in the early 2000s, supported by rapid economic growth, improving credit availability, and rising investor confidence. EU accession in 2007 reinforced the cycle by strengthening capital inflows and household sentiment, while expanding mortgage access lifted effective demand. The global financial crisis interrupted this momentum between 2008 and 2010. A sharp tightening in credit conditions, weaker labor market confidence, and reduced purchasing power weighed on transactions and development activity, marking a clear cyclical reset. House prices fell by almost 70% from 2007 to 2014.

From 2011 to 2014, the market moved into a gradual recovery phase as macro conditions stabilized and wage growth resumed. By 2014, residential pricing and construction activity had largely normalized, setting the stage for renewed confidence. Between 2015 and 2019, improving GDP growth and supportive lending conditions underpinned demand. Public programs such as Prima Casa, later Noua Casa, helped broaden access to mortgage finance for first-time buyers, reinforcing household formation and incremental absorption.

The pandemic period introduced a short-lived shock in 2020, followed by a rapid rebound. As mobility restrictions eased and preferences shifted toward larger or higher-quality homes, demand recovered quickly, and prices remained resilient across key urban markets.

In 2023, activity cooled from post-pandemic peaks as financing costs rose and affordability tightened. That adjustment extended into 2024, with monetary conditions still restrictive and inflation continuing to erode real purchasing power. In 2025, nominal price growth re-accelerated despite affordability pressures, and the August VAT changes appear to have affected transaction timing and buyer mix more than underlying demand for housing.

The defining feature of the current cycle is the persistence of the gap between nominal and real returns. Romanian house prices have risen in nominal terms every year since 2015, but in inflation-adjusted terms they have fallen in each of the four years from 2022 to 2025. The cumulative nominal gain looks substantial; the cumulative real gain does not.

Property Demand Trends

Volumes Fall Nationally While Bucharest Stages a Second-Quarter Recovery

Transaction activity contracted through the first half of 2026, but the pattern within the half was one of steady improvement from a very weak start. Based on ANCPI figures analysed by Economica.net, close to 68,000 transactions involving individual residential units were registered nationwide in the first six months of 2026, down about 9% from the roughly 75,000 recorded in the same period of 2025.

The monthly path explains most of that. January opened 25% below the same month of 2025 and February 20% below, leaving the first quarter at just over 30,000 units, some 17% down year-on-year according to ANCPI data cited by Wall-Street.ro. Activity then turned. By June, 13,460 individual units were transacted nationally, up 8.7% on May and 5.1% on June 2025. Counting all property types, ANCPI recorded 51,808 sales in June 2026 and 272,657 across the first half, 16,229 fewer than in the same period of 2025.

The recovery was concentrated in the capital. After apartment transactions in Bucharest fell 16.6% year-on-year in the first quarter, ANCPI data analysed by Crosspoint Real Estate, the international associate of Savills in Romania, show individual unit transactions up 2.2% in April, almost 16% in May and more than 26% in June against the corresponding months of 2025. Three consecutive months of growth narrowed the full-half decline to just 1.7%, on slightly more than 21,000 units.

Colliers, working from the same registry data, reports Bucharest apartment transactions down 2% year-on-year across the first half against a 9% national decline, with a wide regional spread: Cluj-Napoca fell 16% and Iasi 11%, while Timisoara recorded a 3% increase. The consultancy attributes the divergence to differences in affordability, price levels and available supply rather than to any uniform national trend.

Underneath the volume data, the composition of demand is shifting away from ownership. A survey of 1,000 urban residents conducted by Unlock Market Research for Colliers found that 42.5% of respondents planned to buy a home within the following six to twelve months, up from 35.2% a year earlier, even as the share reporting that they rent rose to 15.9% from 11.3%. The consultancy reads the trend as structural rather than temporary: rising prices, higher financing costs and limited new supply are making it harder for buyers, particularly younger and lower income households, to convert intention into purchase, so renting is becoming a longer term solution and not always by choice.

International survey evidence points the same way. The Deloitte Global Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2026, covering 44 countries, found that 78% of Romanian Generation Z respondents and 85% of millennials said they could not afford a home of their own, well above the global averages of 51% and 40%. The average age of a first-time buyer in Romania reached 30.5 years by June 2026.

Two regulatory changes are also reshaping how demand reaches the market. The VAT rate on new homes rose from 9% to 21%, with the reduced rate now available only under the transitional conditions described above, and Law 207/2025 introduced stricter buyer protection requirements that complicate the financing of projects built on off-plan sales. Together they have raised both the cost and the perceived risk of buying a new home, which helps explain why resale stock has held its share of activity.

Property Supply Trends

Completions Turn Up for the First Time Since 2022, but Permitting Turns Down

The supply story reversed direction in 2026, and the two halves of the pipeline are now moving against each other. Provisional INS data show that 11,876 dwellings were completed in Q1 2026, up 914 units or 8.3% from the 10,962 recorded in Q1 2025. This was the first quarterly increase since 2022, following three consecutive years of decline.

The increase came almost entirely from private capital and from outside the large cities. Of the total, 11,642 dwellings were built with private funds, 1,135 more than a year earlier, while publicly funded completions fell from 455 units to 234, reducing the public share to just 2% of the total. Urban areas still accounted for 52.6% of completions, but the urban count itself declined from 6,352 to 6,241 units, meaning the entire national gain came from rural construction.

Regionally, the West region alone added 749 dwellings year-on-year, followed by the North-West with 271 and the North-East with 147. Bucharest-Ilfov managed an increase of just 17 units. Declines were recorded in South-West Oltenia, at 177 fewer dwellings, the South-East at 119 fewer, and the Centre at 5 fewer.

This modest upturn should be read against a very low base. Colliers estimates that national residential supply dipped by 5% over the first nine months of 2025 and probably finished the full year below 58,000 units, the lowest level since 2017. Broader construction activity is stronger: INS data show the volume of construction works up 8.2% in Q1 2026 on the gross series, with residential buildings the fastest growing category at 16.1%.

Permitting, however, has turned. In the first half of 2026 a total of 15,939 residential building permits were issued, down 9.6% from the same period of 2025. June alone saw 2,960 permits, 2.7% more than May but 15.5% fewer than June 2025, with a total usable floor area of 975,756 square meters, up 18.2% on the previous month. Rural areas accounted for 68.7% of permits issued in the month, reinforcing the geographic shift visible in the completions data.

The regional pattern of permitting is close to the mirror image of the completions pattern. Declines over the first half were recorded in the West, at 429 fewer permits, the North-East at 400 fewer, the South-East at 293 fewer, the North-West at 282 fewer, South-Muntenia at 232 fewer and the Centre at 147 fewer, according to INS figures reported by Bursa. Only South-West Oltenia, with 47 more, and Bucharest-Ilfov, with 36 more, added authorisations.

The capital is the exception worth watching. Colliers notes a significant increase in development activity in Bucharest, with the net floor area authorised for residential buildings rising 3.6 times over the first five months of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, the strongest pace in five years. Permit counts in Bucharest-Ilfov rose only marginally, so the jump is in project scale rather than project number, which suggests a small number of large schemes moving through the authorisation process.

Even so, near-term deliveries remain constrained. SVN Romania identifies around 6,700 homes in various stages of development in the Bucharest-Ilfov region expected to complete mainly in 2026 and 2027, describing this as one of the lowest levels recorded in recent years and materially below the pipeline visible in early 2024. The ANCPI outage compounds the problem in the short run, since developers cannot complete the cadastral receptions required to hand over finished units while e-Terra is unavailable.

Rental Market: Rents and Rental Yields

Official Rent Inflation Diverges Sharply From Market Asking Rents

Romania's rental sector remains structurally small. Just 5.7% of households rent rather than own their residences, and only 2.1% pay market-level rates, according to Eurostat. That small base is now the subject of the single most puzzling data series in the Romanian market.

Romania's rent price index:

The rent component of the consumer price index has recorded an extraordinary increase. INS data show rents up 43.29% year-on-year in June 2026, the second largest annual increase of any category after electricity at 59.97%, against headline CPI inflation of 10.42%. In April the figure was 43.78% year-on-year, and the same INS data showed rents up 34.79% on December 2025 and 33.5% on March 2026 alone.

A one-month increase of 33.5% in a national rent index has no plausible market explanation, and readers should treat the level of the series with caution pending clarification from INS. Market evidence points in a very different direction. The listings platform Storia put the national average asking rent at EUR 503 (USD 582) per month in May 2026, almost unchanged from EUR 505 in April and from EUR 500 in May 2025, an annual increase of well under 1%. Bucharest averaged around EUR 594 (USD 687) and Cluj-Napoca EUR 570 (USD 659), the two most expensive markets as usual.

City-level detail from the same source shows outright declines in several segments. In Cluj-Napoca, studio rents rose 5% year-on-year to EUR 400 while two-room apartments fell 8% to EUR 550 and three-room units held at EUR 700. In Iasi, all three segments softened: studios fell 3% to EUR 340, two-room apartments 4% to EUR 430 and three-room units 5% to EUR 520. The likely reconciliation is that the CPI series is capturing a change in method, coverage or weighting rather than a repricing of the stock, and that the underlying market is broadly flat in nominal terms and therefore falling sharply in real terms.

What is not in doubt is that demand for rentals is rising. The agency The List Estates observed rental volumes up roughly 40% in Q1 2026 against the same period of 2025, with tenants in Bucharest concentrating on districts near office clusters and international schools, in a market where purchase decisions are being deferred.

Yields have compressed accordingly, because prices have kept rising while rents have not. Research conducted by Global Property Guide in July 2026 found gross rental yields for residential units in Romania averaging 5.87% in Q3 2026, down from 6.02% in Q1 2026, 6.33% in Q3 2025 and 6.55% in Q1 2025. That is a decline of 0.68 percentage points across four consecutive readings.

Regional dispersion remains wide. Galati offers the highest gross yields among the assessed submarkets at 7.69%, followed by Bucharest at 6.91% and Constanta at 6.67%. Cluj-Napoca, where purchase prices are highest, returns the least at 4.56%, with Brasov at 5.15%, Iasi at 5.25%, Craiova at 5.35% and Timisoara at 5.41%.

Within Bucharest, larger units currently outperform. Global Property Guide records gross yields of 8.22% on three-bedroom and larger apartments across all locations in the capital and 6.86% on two-bedroom units, against 6.42% for one-bedroom apartments and 6.15% for studios, a reversal of the usual pattern in which the smallest units yield most.

Looking ahead, the rental segment should continue to gain share. Higher taxation of rental income, flagged by the Ministry of Finance among the fiscal pressures on the market, gives landlords an incentive to push through increases, while constrained new supply and deteriorating homeownership affordability keep pushing households into the tenancy market.

Mortgage Market and Interest Rates

Cheaper Credit, Falling Volumes, and a Registry Outage That Halted Disbursement

While an EU member since 2007, Romania has yet to adopt the euro, and interest rates on loans in the country are primarily affected by the monetary policy of the National Bank of Romania (NBR). The central bank has held its policy rate at 6.50% since August 2024, the highest level in the European Union, and reaffirmed that stance at every meeting of 2026: on 19 January, 17 February, 7 April and again on 8 July, when it cited very high uncertainty in explaining the decision. The Lombard facility remains at 7.50% and the deposit facility at 5.50%.

Romania's mortgage loan interest rates:

Analysts do not expect that to change soon. Ahead of the 10 August meeting, banks anticipated another hold alongside a slight upward revision to the inflation projection, with the first cut expected in 2027. BCR's economists see the rate unchanged until May 2027, while UniCredit's chief economist expects it to hold until Q4 2027. The NBR has meanwhile raised its end-2026 inflation forecast to 5.5% from 3.9%, with 2.9% projected for end-2027.

Borrowing costs have nonetheless eased through a different channel. The consumer credit reference index (IRCC), based on interbank transactions and used to calculate variable rates on RON-denominated loans with a delay of roughly two quarters, has fallen for four consecutive quarters from a peak of 6.06% to 5.68% in Q1 2026, 5.58% in Q2 and 5.56% from 1 July 2026. The quarterly steps are now very small: the reduction from 5.58% to 5.56% cuts the monthly instalment on a RON 350,000 (USD 77,214) thirty-year loan by roughly four lei, and analysts expect the Q4 index to be broadly unchanged.

The practical consequence is that the meaningful choice for borrowers is no longer between one quarter's IRCC and the next, but between variable and fixed pricing. Fixed rates now start at around 4.55% to 4.59%, while the total cost of a variable loan, combining the IRCC with a typical bank margin of 2.5%, can exceed 8%. On a RON 350,000 loan over thirty years, that is a monthly instalment of about RON 1,783 at a 4.70% fixed rate against roughly RON 2,582 at 8.06% variable. Fixed-rate products accordingly account for well over 98% of new mortgage lending.

Average pricing on new lending fell sharply during the second quarter. NBR data analysed by Ziarul Financiar show the average rate on new RON mortgages ranging between 7.5% and 7.8% over the first four months of 2026 before dropping toward 6.4% in May and June as banks competed on promotional offers.

Volumes have not kept pace. New RON-denominated mortgage lending exceeded RON 27 billion (USD 5.96 billion) in the first half of 2026, below the same period of 2025. Monthly volumes ranged from RON 3.9 billion to RON 4.8 billion, with January the weakest month and March, May and June the strongest. June delivered RON 4.8 billion (USD 1.06 billion), comparable with May and close to the level of June 2025, which means the year-on-year shortfall was concentrated in the first four months.

The stock, by contrast, continues to grow. Outstanding RON-denominated housing loans reached RON 110.6 billion (USD 24.40 billion) at the end of the first half of 2026, around RON 9 billion or almost 9% above the level a year earlier. Part of the reported new business reflects refinancing and the conversion of older ROBOR-linked loans to the IRCC, both of which are recorded as new lending.

That expansion follows a record year. According to NBR figures cited by SVN Romania Credit and Financial Solutions, total mortgage lending in Romania reached EUR 10.9 billion (USD 12.60 billion) in 2025, up 18.4% year-on-year and the best result in the market's modern history. Financing dedicated exclusively to home purchase amounted to EUR 5.1 billion (USD 5.90 billion), or 46.7% of the total, up 13% from EUR 4.5 billion in 2024, with the remainder accounted for by refinancing, restructuring, conversions and transfers. Individual lenders continue to report strong growth: BCR's mortgage book rose 18.2% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, with its standard mortgage product up 37.7%.

The composition of the stock has shifted decisively toward the national currency over the past decade, a re-composition attributable in large part to the Prima Casa programme launched in 2009 and its successor Noua Casa, introduced in 2020, both of which provide only RON-denominated loans. The government has confirmed that Noua Casa continues in 2026 with a guarantee ceiling of RON 500 million (USD 110.3 million), unchanged from 2025 and drawn against the RON 25 billion total limit for state guarantees this year. From its launch in 2009 to the end of February 2026, the programme had issued 334,304 guarantees and guarantee promises worth RON 31.72 billion (USD 7.00 billion) in total.

As of 2026, the Noua Casa programme offers the following key conditions:

• RON-denominated loans with a 5% downpayment for homes priced up to EUR 70,000, or a 15% downpayment for homes priced up to EUR 140,000;
• A state guarantee covering a share of the loan amount, reducing the risk carried by the lender;
• A variable interest rate calculated as the IRCC plus a capped fixed margin.

The programme's limits are increasingly binding in the largest cities. With average asking prices above EUR 2,200 per square meter in Bucharest and above EUR 3,200 in Cluj-Napoca, the EUR 70,000 ceiling that unlocks the 5% downpayment buys very little in either market, and the higher EUR 140,000 tier requires a 15% deposit, which erodes most of the advantage over a standard mortgage. In practice the scheme now works best in small and medium-sized cities.

The relative size of the mortgage market remains limited. Outstanding housing loans were estimated at just 6.3% of GDP at current prices in 2024, down from 8.4% in 2021, and only 1.5% of Romanian households own their residence with an outstanding mortgage or housing loan, according to Eurostat figures. Around 58% of homes sold in 2025 were purchased with mortgage finance, on Colliers' estimate.

The most immediate constraint on lending, however, is not price or appetite but infrastructure. With e-Terra offline since 14 July, banks have been unable to register mortgages and therefore unable to disburse, which will depress third-quarter figures irrespective of underlying demand.

Economic and Social Factors

Recession, the EU's Highest Inflation, and a Government Brought Down Mid-Adjustment

Romania's economy has moved from stagnation into contraction. Real GDP growth for 2025 has been revised down to 0.7%, and the European Commission expects the economy to broadly stagnate in 2026 before rebounding to 2.3% in 2027, as fiscal consolidation and persistently high inflation driven by rising energy prices suppress domestic consumption while EU-funded investment and net exports contribute positively.

The first quarter came in worse than that baseline implies. GDP fell 1.2% year-on-year in Q1 2026, with household consumption down 1.8% and subtracting 1.1 percentage points from growth. ING has since revised its own forecast to a contraction of 0.5% for 2026, with a rebound toward 2.3% in 2027, and recession is now the base case in most bank forecasts. The interim finance minister has suggested growth of 0.1% is still achievable, with agriculture and construction supporting a second-half recovery.

Inflation is the binding problem. After averaging 7.3% across 2025, the annual CPI rate ran at 9.62% in January, 9.31% in February, 9.87% in March, 10.71% in April, and 10.85% in May before easing to 10.42% in June, a third consecutive month above 10%. Services rose at 13.67% year-on-year in June and non-food goods at 12.29%, while food rose a comparatively modest 5.75%.

On the harmonised measure used for cross-country comparison, Romania recorded 9.2% in June 2026 against an EU average of 2.9%, the highest rate in the Union for the eighth consecutive month and more than three times the EU figure. The next lowest of the high-inflation group were Lithuania at 5.4% and Bulgaria at 5.2%. The NBR expects a substantial fall in the annual rate from the third quarter, largely because the energy price liberalisation and VAT and excise increases of July and August 2025 drop out of the base.

The labour market has begun to give way. The ILO unemployment rate rose to 6.5% in Q1 2026, up 0.2 percentage points from Q4 2025, with 536,200 people unemployed out of an active population of 8,197,800. The gap between rural and urban areas remains stark, at 10.3% against 3.5%, and youth unemployment among 15 to 24-year-olds stood at 27.4%. The monthly seasonally adjusted series eased slightly to 6.3% in June 2026, with 511,600 unemployed. The European Commission expects the rate to reach about 6.3% for 2026 as a whole before receding in 2027.

Real incomes are falling. The average net wage reached RON 5,938 (USD 1,310) in March 2026, up 4.3% in nominal terms from a year earlier but 5.1% lower in real terms given March inflation of 9.87%, with the nominal freeze on public wages and moderation in the private sector holding growth well below prices.

Fiscal consolidation is proceeding faster than expected, but its politics have become fragile. Moody's affirmed Romania's Baa3 sovereign rating with a negative outlook on 7 August 2026, citing high implementation risks around the multi-year consolidation programme. The agency projects the budget deficit falling to 5.8% of GDP in 2026, more than two percentage points below the previous year, on spending discipline and solid revenue, and estimates financing needs averaging around 12% of GDP over 2026 to 2028. Fitch had affirmed its own BBB- rating with a negative outlook a week earlier, leaving Romania on the lowest investment grade rung with all three major agencies.

Both agencies have identified the same trigger. Moody's assesses political conditions as more challenging following the passage of a no-confidence motion against the government in May 2026, and says that adoption of a deficit-reducing 2027 budget before the end of 2026, together with an adequate public wage law, would signal the political consensus needed to return the outlook to stable. The absence of such a consensus would exert downward pressure on non-investment-grade.

The leu has drifted lower through this. Having touched an all-time low of RON 5.2688 to the euro on 6 May 2026, the currency was quoted at RON 5.2396 on 10 August, against an average of RON 5.0431 for 2025, a depreciation of close to 4% over the period. UniCredit expects the euro to trade in a RON 5.20 to 5.30 range through the second half of 2026. The current account deficit, which the European Commission projects declining from 7.9% of GDP in 2025 to 6.9% in 2026 and 6.4% in 2027, remains among the largest in the EU, and an NBR deputy governor has warned that it may stay above 7% of GDP this year.

Sources:

1. National Institute of Statistics (INS)
   1. Residential Construction, Q1 2026 (Provisional Data) (RO): https://insse.ro/
   2. Building Permits for Residential Buildings, June 2026 (RO): https://insse.ro/
   3. Inflation and the Evolution of Consumer Prices (RO): https://insse.ro/
   4. Employment and Unemployment, Q1 2026 (RO): https://insse.ro/
2. National Bank of Romania (NBR)
   1. NBR Board Decisions on Monetary Policy, January 2026: https://www.bnr.ro/
   2. Loans to Households: https://www.bnr.ro/
   3. Financial Markets: https://www.bnr.ro/
   4. Exchange Rates: https://www.bnr.ro/
   5. Monthly Bulletins: https://www.bnr.ro/
3. National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration (ANCPI)
   1. Statistics (RO): https://www.ancpi.ro/
4. Eurostat and the European Commission
   1. House Prices up by 4.7% in the Euro Area, Q1 2026: https://ec.europa.eu/
   2. Housing Price Statistics, House Price Index: https://ec.europa.eu/
   3. Annual Inflation Down to 2.8% in the Euro Area, June 2026: https://ec.europa.eu/
   4. Distribution of Population by Tenure Status, Type of Household, and Income Group: https://ec.europa.eu/
   5. Economic Forecast for Romania: https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/
5. International Monetary Fund (IMF)
   1. Country Overview: Romania: https://www.imf.org/
6. Moody's Ratings
   1. Moody's Ratings Affirms Romania's Baa3 Ratings, Maintains Negative Outlook: https://ratings.moodys.com/
7. National Credit Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises (FNGCIMM)
   1. Noua Casa (RO): https://www.fngcimm.ro/
8. Global Property Guide
   1. Gross Rental Yields in Romania: https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/
9. SVN Romania
   1. Research and Market Reports: https://www.svn.ro/
10. Imobiliare.ro and Agerpres
    1. New Apartments Rose Most in Bucharest, Existing Homes in Timisoara (RO): https://agerpres.ro/
    2. Imobiliare.ro Index (RO): https://www.imobiliare.ro/
11. Storia
    1. Romanians Are Turning to Renting Amid Rising Sale Prices (RO): https://www.storia.ro/
12. Colliers
    1. Bucharest Apartment Sales Nearly Recover After Weak Start to 2026: https://www.romania-insider.com/
    2. New Housing Supply Falls to an Eight-Year Low: https://www.colliers.com/
    3. Residential Market Report 2026: https://market-report.colliers.ro/
    4. Rising Homebuying Interest Contrasts With Falling Transactions: https://www.romania-insider.com/
13. ING
    1. Monitoring Romania: The Last-Mile RRF Push Meets a Weak Economy: https://think.ing.com/
14. Ziarul Financiar
    1. Mortgage Lending in H1 2026 (RO): https://www.zf.ro/
    2. Analysts Expect the NBR to Hold at 6.5% (RO): https://www.zf.ro/
15. Bursa
    1. INS: Completions Rose to 11,876 Units in Q1 2026 (RO): https://www.bursa.ro/
    2. INS: 2,960 Residential Building Permits Issued in June 2026 (RO): https://www.bursa.ro/
    3. IRCC Falls to 5.56% in Q3 2026 (RO): https://www.bursa.ro/
    4. BCR Group, H1 2026 Results (RO): https://www.bursa.ro/
    5. INS: Unemployment rose to 6.5% in Q1 2026 (RO): https://www.bursa.ro/
16. Economica.net
    1. Apartment Transactions in June 2026 (RO): https://www.economica.net/
    2. Apartment Sales at the Start of 2026 (RO): https://www.economica.net/
    3. NBR Holds the Policy Rate, 8 July 2026 (RO): https://www.economica.net/
    4. SVN Credit Romania Intermediated EUR 326.5 Million of Financing in 2025 (RO): https://www.economica.net/
17. Juridice.ro and Schoenherr
    1. The Cyberattack on ANCPI: Legal Implications of the Property Market Freeze (RO): https://www.juridice.ro/
    2. The Cyberattack on ANCPI: Who Pays for the Frozen Property Market? (RO): https://www.agendaconstructiilor.ro/
18. Verifi
    1. ANCPI and e-Terra Status and VAT Deadline Extension (RO): https://verifi.ro/
19. Romania Insider
    1. House Prices in Romania Rise 7.8% in Q1: https://www.romania-insider.com/
    2. Moody's Affirms Romania's Sovereign Rating: https://www.romania-insider.com/
    3. Average Age of First-Time Homebuyers Reaches 30.5 Years: https://www.romania-insider.com/
20. Digi24
    1. Inflation Eased in June but Remains Above 10% (RO): https://www.digi24.ro/
21. StartupCafe
    1. Rents Rose 43.78% Over the Past Year (RO): https://startupcafe.ro/
22. Curierul National
    1. First-Half Figures Show a Recovery in the Residential Market (RO): https://curierulnational.ro/
    2. IRCC Falls to 5.56% in Q3 2026 (RO): https://curierulnational.ro/
23. Wall-Street.ro
    1. Rentals Rose 40% in Q1 2026 While Apartment Sales Slowed (RO): https://www.wall-street.ro/
24. Other sources
    1. Ministry of Finance, Noua Casa Guarantee Ceiling for 2026 (RO): https://www.ceccarbusinessmagazine.ro/
    2. Noua Casa Continues in 2026 With a RON 500 Million Ceiling (RO): https://www.dailybusiness.ro/
    3. Noua Casa in 2026: Harder Access in the Large Cities (RO): https://tvrinfo.ro/
    4. Monthly ANCPI Transaction Statistics for Individual Units (RO): https://minside.ro/
    5. More Property Transactions in June (RO): https://arenaconstruct.ro/
    6. Residential Building Permits, June Versus May (RO): https://arenaconstruct.ro/
    7. INS: Construction Works Rose 8.2% in Q1 2026 (RO): https://www.agendaconstructiilor.ro/
    8. Completions Rose Strongly in Western Romania (RO): https://cursdeguvernare.ro/
    9. INS: Almost 12,000 Dwellings Completed in Q1 2026 (RO): https://www.capital.ro/
    10. Unemployment in June 2026 (RO): https://www.capital.ro/
    11. Romanians Are Turning to Renting (RO): https://economedia.ro/
    12. BCR: NBR to Hold at 6.50% Until May 2027 (RO): https://bankingnews.ro/
    13. UniCredit on the NBR Policy Rate Outlook (RO): https://business24.ro/
    14. Annual Inflation Rose to 10.4% in June (RO): https://www.mediafax.ro/
    15. Inflation in Romania 2026, Wage and Price Data (RO): https://fricadebani.ro/
    16. Moody's Affirms Romania at Baa3 on Fiscal Progress: https://uk.investing.com/
    17. Moody's Maintains the Negative Outlook (RO): https://ziare.com/
    18. NBR Reference Exchange Rate, 10 August 2026 (RO): https://cupiu.ro/
    19. Deloitte Global Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2026, Romania Housing Affordability (RO): https://www.cursbnr.ro/